


The Queen of Poison

by Chris Rhyanne (AureliaAurita)



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:11:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10006199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AureliaAurita/pseuds/Chris%20Rhyanne
Summary: The last Queen has died, her sisters long gone. Their era has come to an end, and new Queens must lead their people to the future. The Gods have dragged Karishma from her home and into theirs, and have given her a mate whose touch brings only death. But neither know of the Gods' involvement until it's far too late: Karma, it seems, can be both a blessing and a curse. [[Story also Available on FictionPress]]





	1. Prologue

Karishma woke ungracefully to electronic bells. Her back ached as she sat upright over her desk and fumbled with a stack of empty coffee cups and notecards to find her phone. She meant to turn the alarm off, but her pudgy fingers decided she had hit snooze. At least the bells had stopped. For now.

She decided spending effort to turn the alarm off wasn't worth it and sunk her head back down into her textbook with a soft, frustrated noise. Five more minutes of sleep. That's all she could ask for. Five more minutes...

Midterms were, objectively, the worst.

Five minutes passed far too quickly, but at least she managed to turn the alarm off for good. She reached up to rub her eyes, smudging her glasses in the process. Well, that explained the pain in her temple. Falling asleep in glasses tended to do that. She slid them off and with another low whine she pulled herself upright, stretching weakly in her rolling chair before hobbling to the bathroom. When she returned, it was with a huff more than anything else.

She checked her phone alerts and made a face at her Snapchat—her flatmates didn't have exams until next Thursday and were sending her live updates from a downtown bar's single ladies night. _Karma sux xoxo_ Nila had sent.

Karma had been her nickname since middle school—it seemed more appropriate than 'miracle,' anyway. The only miracle now was how she had managed to get this far into the semester without doing any of her online homework assignments for three different classes, most of which were now due by Monday or Tuesday night. Truly, Karma at its finest.

She reluctantly turned off Snapchat notifications and set her phone down. In high school, she would have been out with them. But now…

When did her Friday nights become so… _this_?

She reached up to scratch at her tiny nose stud—a permanent reminder of her long-gone party days—and was not even surprised when she felt a notecard stuck to her cheek. She peeled it off with no discernible emotion. A physics equation stared back at her. "Velocity plus wind resistance…?" She flipped it over. Crap. "Acceleration plus wind resistance," she mumbled, setting the card down and burying her head in earnest. Junior year. She had put off physics until junior year. What the hell had she been thinking? "Fffffuck you, physics." She gave the flashcard the middle finger. If it was upset, it didn't show.

The LED lamp was too bright. It was hardly past eight, so the sun couldn't have set long ago, but her nap made it feel like midnight. She considered turning it off but decided against it. She set the alarm for a reason—she needed to finish reading chemistry tonight, at least. It was her first class on Monday and her first exam of the week, and organic chem was finally kicking her ass. Her head spun with long lists of suffixes, prefixes, and chemical shapes and interactions. Aerosols were easy, at least. But alcohols… they shouldn't be as hard as they were. Right?

She stared at the book in front of her, then to the pages of bright green notes to the side. The last line of notes had devolved into a drawing of a frowny face, then a dick with shark teeth eating said frowny face. Well, Monday was going to be fun.

She leaned back and looked to her bed wistfully. Her roommate had dropped out in January when her scholarship ran out; Karma missed her, but now she had the room to herself, and shared the bathroom with two other friends instead of three. Most importantly, she had pushed their two twin beds together into a megabed. It took up a considerable portion of the room and made opening dressers hard but… megabed. Her oversized pillows called out to her, and she only barely resisted the urge to go ahead to sleep for the night. No. She had reserved the night for chemistry, and she was not going to move from her chair until she finished the chapter or it killed her.

Her stomach growled, and she stood up to slink to her fridge. "Well," she mumbled. "Dinner first."

She pulled her second-to-last slice of cold pizza with more than a little regret. She really shouldn't have ordered it in the first place, considering how much it cost versus what little nutrition it offered. But it offered easy calories and a garlic parmesan crust. Maybe… maybe too easy calories, but it sated her stomach as well as her nerves. Nevertheless, she licked her fingers clean with more than a little guilt, frowning down at her stomach.

Karishma had never been little. She never quite lost her baby fat, staying stocky through school, and always liked to eat and cook. What else could she have expected from an Italian mother and Indian father? She was raised on fresh pasta and home baked naan. If anyone expected her to walk away from home with anything short of a waddle, they had never met her parents at all.

She looked back to the fridge with even more guilt. It wasn't that she was eating more now that she was away from home. In fact, she was undoubtedly eating less often now that home cooking was an eighteen hour drive away. But meals now came sporadically if at all, and when she did eat, it was pizza and fries instead of home baked ratatouille. Her freshman fifteen had turned to sophomore thirty, and she didn't want to know what her junior year had done to her. She only knew that her freshman sleeping shirts were now regular, much-tighter-than-she'd-like shirts, and she'd had to upgrade her underwear drawer once and her bras twice since high school. And forget the Jessica Rabbit figure. Karma was fairly certain that whoever came up with "through the lips and onto the hips" had never seen her particular waist

And between the chub, dark taupe skin, and far too many scattered moles? She felt like a twice baked potato with too many eyes.

Maybe you're a cute potato, she told herself. No, she argued back, glumly. Just a baked potato.

She helped herself to the last slice of pizza.

After a quick shower and washing up for bed, her phone flashed again and she smiled at it. It was her goodnight text from her parents, complete with a dozen kiss emojis and a promise of a big dinner once exams were over. She replied back with two dozen emojis and told them she was looking forward to it. Her battery was low, she realized glumly. But her charger was on her bed…

She picked up her textbook with a strained grumble. Nothing was stopping her from reading in bed. She flipped off her desk lamp and flipped on her bed light, settling down and beginning to read again in earnest now that she was comfortable. Reading was easier than listening in class. Books and predetermined words made sense, like chemistry was supposed to. She had nothing against her professors, but… the books were easier sometimes, no matter how much classes were emphasized. Especially in chemistry. She was no longer taking notes, but she reread the chapter with care, trying to remember exceptions and mnemonics with tired eyes. Eventually, she reached her bookmark and decided that the review questions had to wait until tomorrow. It was the weekend, and she was allowed to sleep in. And god was she going to sleep in.

She flipped the lamp off and slipped under her covers, shrugging off the outer blanket in favor of the cool sheet. It was an unseasonably warm March for even Florida, and the dorm was barely hovering around tepid.

She propped her chin against a pillow and scrolled through her twitter feed, too tired to reply to much. She laughed when a page of horrifically bad cartoon porn scrolled by and blushed when she scrolled by something much nicer underneath it. She felt a twitch between her legs at that, and quickly shut off her phone in embarrassment. She wasn't exactly the most sexual person she knew, but… a girl had to eat. Right? "Not that I've been on the menu," she grumbled out loud. She hadn't had a boyfriend since her senior year of high school, when she'd decided men were trash and discovered she could please her own damn self if the need arose. She'd dated a few times since then, but nothing had ever clicked, and no one seemed as interested in her as she was in them.

So, no, she hadn't had sex in a while.

...But…

Karma sighed and, once the lights were out, tossed her clothes to the floor. She usually slept naked anyway, but now she was already too hot, even with her hair still damp from the shower. It barely brushed her shoulders, as black in the dark as anything else. She combed a hand through it gently, trying not to undo her loose curls, before sinking back under the covers. She realized glumly that she was damp in other places. God, what one dumb twitter post could do to her. Maybe her friends were right—maybe she did just need to get laid. She thought about reaching for the bullet tucked under her mattress, but… She settled for her hands, gently rubbing her blanket into herself with drowsy circles. It was a gentle pleasure—not much at all—but the warmth and familiarity was soothing, letting her drift easily without needing to finish.

She forgot completely about her exams, chemistry, and charging her dying phone. Sleep overtook her, comforting and soft, and she dreamed about going home to bake and eat a hundred homemade pizzas with her family back at home.

She wouldn't remember her dreams—she never did—but they still came to her, nighttime journeys of both the familiar and unfamiliar. Tonight, they were unfamiliar, but she would never know.

She was so deep in sleep that she didn't hear her window click and slide open. The new breeze slipping around the room didn't stir her, and shortly after, the feeling of a hundred gentle hands roaming over her did nothing but make her hug her sheets tighter. The whispers found their way into her dreams, though, taking the form of happily spilled secrets from her mother and grandmother, and she smiled at them faintly. By then, something had overtaken her, and she slumbered peacefully even as those hundred gentle hands lifted her blanket cocoon from the bed and the breeze turned into a whipping wind around her. She did shiver, and the hands drifted over her face in a dozen soft caresses.

In her dream, Karma was dismayed as a storm blew inside the house, threatening to blow away her family's hard work. She felt her mother and grandmother hold her hands warmly, undisturbed, and seeing them so relaxed lulled her as well. "I'll help you start the bread," she offered, steady even as jars shattered around them.

"You're a lovely girl," her mother said in a voice that was not her own, but it was so warm Karma couldn't help but smile.

"A lovely girl," her grandmother agreed in the same voice. "So lucky to have you. We love you."

"Aw, Nana… I love you too." She grinned at her father as he approached, holding a plate of instantly baked olive bread.

"Our princess," he said in the same voice as the others, and she laughed as they all agreed. The kitchen was in shambles, but her family was smiling back at her and nothing else could matter.

"Our queen," her mother said as she brushed her cheek. "Our queen. Join us."

Karma hugged her, happy to feel her father and grandmother hugging her as well. Homesickness washed through her. "'Course, mom. Dinner's almost ready."

The voices echoed softly around her, their warm praise staying even as her dream drifted, as dreams do, to other scenes. They followed her through classes, through the ocean, and through another scene of baking at home with her mother. Voices she had never heard, but spoke as if they'd always been there, always loved her. Her best friends.

"Welcome home," her mother murmured in that soft, warm voice, and Karma couldn't imagine why she'd ever left.

* * *

" _Karishmaaaaaaa_!" Nila rapped on her flatmate's bathroom door, pissed. "What the fuck, _chutiya_! Did you seriously sleep through your fucking exam?! Terry said you didn't show!" There was no response. She groaned loudly and leaned on the door. That girl could sleep through an earthquake! Her phone was dead, too. God, if she had missed her midterm because of a dead phone alarm…! "Bitch I'm coming in and you _better_ be dressed!"

The door was unlocked, and she burst in, ready to slap some sense into her friend. But the room was empty. She must have already left. "That dumbass," she muttered, then made a face at the room. "What a mess…" The girl's floor was covered in clothes and papers.

She stopped when she saw Karishma's purse lying next to her bed, right next to her student ID lanyard. What the hell? They needed their ID to get out of the building. And Nila had never even seen her leave the _room_ without her giant ass mom purse, even to pick up pizza at the front desk. Really, what the _hell_?

Nila's arms prickled as a chill went through her. This was all unlike her. Something was off.

A note card fluttered across the floor, making Nila jump. With a start, she realized the window was wide open and everything on Karishma's desk was soaked through. Nila stared at the mess, mental gears slowly clicking together as she tried to take in in the scene in front of her.

The dorm windows were _never_ opened—it messed with the AC, and there was a two hundred dollar fine if you were caught. Karishma was a square and a stickler for rules—she wouldn't have opened it, wouldn't have opened it all the way, and _definitely_ wouldn't have let four hundred dollars worth of textbooks ruin in the rain all weekend.

Karishma wasn't there. Hadn't been there. She couldn't have even even walked out of the dorm without her ID. And she hadn't opened the window.

...No. Someone else had.

Nila stood there, numb, for far too long. Then, for the first time in her life, she dialed 911. She tried to keep her voice steady, but by the time she hung up, the tears wouldn't stop. She was barely able to call her own parents, and couldn't possibly call Karishma's. What was she going to say? What could she possibly tell them? She couldn't imagine why _anyone_ would be after Karishma—fuck, even her ex had called her too nice to be mad at. What the hell had happened? Was it just bad luck? Had she… had she been _hiding_ something from her?

God, why hadn't she checked on her _sooner_?!

Nila hadn't prayed in years, but she sobbed as she clutched her phone to her chest and asked any god who would listen to keep her friend safe. Wherever she was.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is a thing, huh? I've only posted on FPress in the past, but I've had friends convince me to start posting stuff here too. So. Here I am! I guess!
> 
> This story is inspired by a lot of other stories I've read and written over the years, but I have to give a shout out for one in particular: The Princess and the Dragon by MadameLeQueen, over on Fiction Press. It's unfinished, and will probably remain that way, as it's been... about four years since an update. But I'm a damn sucker for anything involving magical romance and being whisked away to who knows where. And... what can I say. I'm a damn romantic at heart.
> 
> I'm going to upload about six chapters at once, so this is the last author's note for now. But I'll do my best to respond to all reviews and questions once I've written enough to upload another batch.
> 
> I hope you enjoy my self indulgent fluffy romance with eventual boning: or as I like to call it, plot with porn. Also, I have no idea what the HELL to tag this shit with, so any suggestions are welcome. For the record, this is going to be pretty damn Het, but I'm doing my damnedest to keep it inclusive otherwise. If I mess up, please, let me know. Call me the hell out I'm begging you. I want to make something people can enjoy without guilt. Well, I mean, it's romance porn. It's made of guilt. But like, without being uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than usual reading. Slow burn plot w/porn.
> 
> Thanks! And, hopefully, enjoy


	2. Chapter 1

Karishma woke with a gentle shiver. She kept her eyes closed, but buried her face into her pillow to warm her nose. She shivered again and shifted to her side. She was still wrapped in her sheet, but it felt like there was a blanket on top of her. She must have pulled it over herself in the night. It was certainly cold enough. She pulled her toes into her bundle, frowning into her pillow. The dorm AC was ridiculous. Melting one day, freezing the next. Well, for the weather outside, she wasn't complaining.

There was a faint plip of rain on glass, and she nearly let it lull her back to sleep. Rain… that was right, it was due to rain that weekend. It had been a hot spring, but a dry one. Maybe the rain would give the plants a kick start. Well, not that Florida was ever anything but green anyway. She continued to listen to the gentle patter with satisfaction.

She felt well rested for the first time in a month, almost unnaturally so. Honestly, she needed to plan more sleep. Six am to one am was hardly a way to live.

Light flashed behind her eyes, followed by a low, distant roll of thunder. The sound was music to her ears.

Eventually, she opened her eyes to darkness. Huh. Night still. She must not have slept as long as she thought. She felt the bed for her phone before rummaging around her cocoon. There it was. She pulled up the screen to her face and squinted against the sudden bright light. The battery warning glowed red against her face, and she let out a long sigh. Six percent. Damn. She unlocked her phone as she groped around for her charger. Where was that thing? Fallen behind the bed again, probably.

She frowned as she pulled up twitter. Nothing was loading. The wifi was… not working. God damnit. The dorm wifi was as shitty as the AC. She went to turn on mobile data, but it was broken as well. No bars. She looked again at the dark room. Huh. Her computer light wasn't there, and she couldn't see the hallway light.

"Power outage," she groaned softly. God _damn_ it. It must have taken out the cell tower too. Great. She stared glumly at the ceiling. She could always try to go back to sleep…

Well, bathroom first. She reluctantly swung her feet off of the bed, shivering at the cold wood floor. Damn, it was freezing! The AC must have been outright broken. She dragged her hand along the wall, feeling her way to the bathroom. It was a longer trip than she remembered, but the door was open, at least. The countertop felt… weirdly large in the dark. She guessed everything must seem bigger when you couldn't see it. Even the toilet felt bigger than she remembered, and she couldn't feel any toilet paper around her no matter how far she stretched, settling for one of her flatmate's clean washcloths with a bit of embarrassment. But… where was the handle? She fumbled in the dark, feeling like an idiot. God. She wouldn't last a day as a blind person, would she. But she must have pushed it somehow; it flushed, leaving her to fumble with the sink to wash her hands and the washcloth. The water was frigid and she couldn't find her soap pump, but there was a bar of something soapy that she made do with.

She slunk back to bed with freezing, cinnamon scented hands. Ugh! She was investing in a flashlight, that was for sure.

She felt her way back to bed, eager to be back under covers and with her phone, dying or not. She meant to check her signal again but stopped. She stared, strangely puzzled, at the phone screen. It said it was one. One in the afternoon. But that couldn't be right. She looked up again to the sound of rain on the windows, slightly harder and more blustery than before. And… no, it was almost a clinking noise now. Like… like sleet or small hail. What the hell was going on outside? She couldn't see a thing. And… no… what were those glowing dots in the window? Fireflies? Was it just her phone's reflection?

A long, gently pulsing lightning bolt lit up the sky, and Karma felt her brown skin pale to grey.

An entire wall of windows lit the room, looking out over a rolling landscape of dense pine forests. There were mountains in the distance—rocky, craggy mountains that faded into the hills in front of her. It was raining and hard to see, but there, in the distance, there were the blocky outlines of clustered houses between hills, and what she thought might be fireflies were pinpricks of warm street lights against the white glow of lightning.

The lightning faded as thunder rolled over the room. Only the pinpricks of distant streetlights were visible in the returning darkness, but the image was burned into her mind.

This was not her dorm.

This wasn't even Miami.

Where the hell was she?

A cough came from behind her—she clamped her hand over her mouth before she could scream. Karma scrambled out of bed, wrapping herself in her sheet and clinging tightly to her pillow. She fumbled with her phone, battery be damned, and switched on the flashlight. Chills ran up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

The bed she had been sleeping in was not her own, and she hadn't been the only one in it. There was another, larger lump under the thick blankets, gently rising and falling with the rhythm of deep sleep. She could see nothing of the figure but a few wisps of long, almost white hair draped over the pillow she'd been laying on, and a pale hand that pulled itself back under the sheets as the figure stirred lightly. She quickly turned the flashlight away from them—him, maybe, from the voice—to keep from waking them. The figure stopped stirring, letting out a long incoherent mumble and a cough before the soft rhythmic breathing continued. They were still asleep.

She backed up slowly, looking down at the floor and trying to stay calm. Actually, she was calm. Calmer than she should be, she supposed. What the Hell? Was she kidnapped? Did she get drunk and fly to Russia? Canada? Was she just dreaming? It didn't feel like a dream. But then, didn't all dreams feel that way at the time?

Her back felt the coolness of the window before she walked into it, and she turned the flashlight to it with equal parts awe and shock. There was frost lacing the window frames, and the rain rapping against the glass had turned to a thick sleet. She could no longer see into the darkness, but the image of endless hills was burned into her. No, this wasn't Miami. Not at all.

She turned away from the window, heart pounding steadily. She was suddenly painfully aware that she was naked under her sheet and wrapped it tighter around herself. God, it was cold. Her phone shook in her hands as she looked around for anything familiar, searching the ground for her clothes she had tossed off the night before.

But there were no clothes and there was nothing familiar about the room. It was too large and old fashioned, and another flash of lightning showed only the posted bed, a giant chest at its foot, and two large sets of drawers. A black pit like a fireplace sat opposite the bed, but if it held a fire, it was long dead. The lightning faded quickly and her dim flashlight couldn't reach far, but there, on the other side of the room, there was another door. An escape.

Slowly, she crept around the bed. Her heart hammered unbearably, and even if her brain reasoned she was no louder than the harsh sleet and thunder, her ears told her that her own breathing could wake the dead.

She reached the bar handle with hands shaking as badly as the rest of her. The handle turned with a small click, and she jumped at the sound and looked back to the bed. Nothing stirred that she could tell, but it was too dark to know for certain. For a horrible moment, she thought the door would creak, but it swung open easily at her push. She didn't allow herself to breathe until the door was closed behind her.

Her relief was short lived, as she only found herself in another needlessly large room. The rear wall in this room was all window as well, though, and a close strike of lightning made her flinch as it lit up a maze of chairs, furniture, and… something else, big and unidentifiable. Her glasses, she realized with a start. Wherever she was, she definitely didn't have her glasses. Crap. But she had seen another dark square against the light walls—another exit. Those doors were locked, and she would have cried if her light hadn't shown a silver key still glittering in the lock. It turned easily, and she was free. Those doors did creak, but quietly enough that she didn't fear waking the stranger.

Finally, she was in a hallway. She hurried right, hoping she had chosen the way to the exit.

Wherever she was, it might as well have been a maze. It took her several minutes to realize the hallway she was in looped around, and several more to find a staircase downward into a huge open lobby. Everything there had the same strangeness to it. Too large, too open. Decadent, definitely: there were rugs in strange patterns, expensive looking furniture with plush seating, stained glass windows with vaguely art deco metalwork, and wrought metal chandeliers with no light switches she could find. Everything that wasn't wood or metal was emerald green, white, or gold, in that order of prevalence. Decadent for certain.

Every lightning flash—they were becoming more frequent—sent shadows across the room that gave her goosebumps. It might have been grand in the day, but to a stranger at night with no light to speak of, it was only unsettling. It felt like walking through a cathedral at night. It was… ethereal. If a ghost had appeared, she wouldn't have thought it out of place.

Walking through the room, she realized that everything was slightly… oversized. As if it was built for a scale slightly larger than her own. Karma wasn't exactly _short_ —five foot five, at least—but she felt oddly small here.

The overall _feel_ of the place was confusing, she thought as she found herself in another hallway. She was no architect for sure, but everything was… off, somehow, as if someone had thrown together different eras of design with no concern for authenticity. It looked vaguely… Victorian, maybe? Decadent for sure. But with odd, angular patterns everywhere instead of Victorian curves. Maybe it was closer to art deco in that sense… but no, it wasn't _that_ angular, and it was missing the fan motifs and crossed lines she associated with deco. It was far too lavish to carry the 20's aesthetic, anyway. The floors were a dark, nearly black wood while the walls were covered in a matte emerald wallpaper, laced with metallic gold organic patterns and stripes. The furniture and trim was made of dark wood as well, all intricately carved in an odd angular style and inlaid with what looked to be ivory… but no, there was far too much of it to be _real_ ivory. That would be crazy. And this all couldn't be real gold, of course. Gold plated, maybe. But the alternative was just as ludicrous as the ivory.

Carved animals and plants, both real and fantastic, lined the hallway and framed the doors, and dozens of ivory-whited, emerald-irised eyes seemed to follow her in the dark. She passed a door engraved with a snarling, jagged dragon head and shivered from something other than the cold.

She turned the flashlight upwards, finding a series of black diamond cages dotting the ceilings. Lamps. All off, and she hadn't seen a light switch anywhere. Actually, she realized with a start, she hadn't seen _any_ sign of electricity. There were no outlets, no switches… no night lights, for sure. There had been streetlights in the distance, but that had been pretty far away. Maybe… maybe it wasn't a power outage. Maybe there was just no power here at all. Maybe she _was_ in some weird, old Russian mansion in the middle of nowhere, with no cell towers for hundreds of miles. Well, no cell towers with Verizon service, anyway. Maybe this was all just weird, Slavic interior design. It wasn't like she had any alternative ideas.

She was wondering if she had found another looping corridor when her flashlight snapped off, freezing her in place. "Oh no, no no no no no-!" Her phone had finally hit zero, and was powering down. Using the last light she could, she hurried ahead….

And again, she was in darkness.

This time, the urge to cry didn't rise. The whole experience had become somewhat surreal. Instead, she looked around with grim acceptance. It was still storming outside. She would have to wait for the lightning to light her way.

She did just that, creeping forward and feeling her way until a flash cleared the way ahead. Eventually, she became certain she was trapped in another loop.

Her feet were nearly numb—it was somehow even colder downstairs. Wherever she was, no one had bothered heating the place. She crouched down several times to try to rub life into her cramped toes, or at least confirm they were there.

It was during one such pause that she noticed something low to the ground she hadn't seen before. A faint flickering light under a doorway she had just passed. She hurried back, examining the door and finding it a thick curtain instead. Pulling it aside revealed a stone staircase with a faint glow from below that moved like candlelight. Her heart pounded and she hurried forward, eager for light, warmth, and the promise of escape.

She hadn't known that she had seen the flickering reflecting from a pane of ice. Not until it was too late. As she crossed the threshold, her bare foot slid forward as a loud crack of thunder burst just beyond the window. Deafened, blinded, off balance, and still clutching her sheets, she tumbled down the staircase with a shriek and then second crack that sounded nothing like thunder.

* * *

 

This time, waking was accompanied by sharp pain in her left leg and a blinding pain in the back of her head. Everything else was sore or throbbing, it seemed. Opening her eyes, there was only a blank white ceiling in front of her. At least it wasn't dark anymore. Two voices, male and female, conversed somewhere around her, but it was difficult to focus on anything but her head.

She remembered falling, and she remembered wandering, and she remembered waking up in a strange bed. She remembered it clearly, clearer than any dream.

She sat up with a soreness that was bearable but definitely unpleasant. Her mouth was dry, but the room was warm. Unfortunately, there was nothing to see except white curtains hung around the small cot someone had rested her on. Someone had kindly given her a white night slip, though a quick inspection showed that the slip was all she was wearing. A stab of guilt and embarrassment came a moment later, and she felt sorry for whoever had carried her there. She wasn't exactly a featherweight, after all... But she was there, and she should be grateful, she supposed.

She looked around, the familiar smell of disinfectant faint in the room. Was it a hospital? Or something like it, anyway? Her fear eased a bit at that. Hospitals weren't exactly restful places, but her father was a nurse and the thought of the familiar place was a comfort after the strangeness she'd been through. Besides, hospitals meant help, and help was certainly what she needed.

Trying to stand was a mistake. She couldn't help but cry out as she put pressure on her left leg, seeing stars of pain behind stinging eyes. It was broken all right. Somewhere in her femur. Probably just a fracture, but that didn't stop tears from spilling over her cheeks as she grit her teeth.

The conversation she had heard halted, and a concerned female voice hurried her way. The curtain parted to reveal a tall, pale woman in all black. Her outfit looked as old fashioned and muddled as everything else, with something like a tunic falling over loose pants tucked into high boots. But her grey eyes were piercing and she wore a tightly pinned crown of dusty blonde braids, drawing any attention from her outfit to her face. She couldn't have been far into her thirties but she held herself with an aged grace.

" _Ayashi_?" she asked with a gentleness that didn't match her fierce appearance. The word was unfamiliar, though, and held an accent Karma couldn't place.

"Ah… yashi?" she repeated, Karma's brows furrowing as she quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks "I'm sorry, I don't understand… Um..." Her eyebrows raised at that spoke. Karma had a feeling their words were mutually unfamiliar, but she had to try. "Do you speak English?" The stranger's expression didn't change. She tried again. Her Hindi was rusty, but serviceable."Kyā āp hindī bolte haiṅ?"

The woman finally frowned. " _Ayram alic_?" Karma didn't know how to respond. " _Suæs na patræmil_?" she asked in a different accent. Was she asking different languages of her as well? " _Orlomo salėr rė miomos_?" Karma could only shake her head, her expression falling as the woman spoke.

"Um… uh… Hablas Español?" No response. "Parlez-vous français?" She didn't speak a word of Spanish or French, but it was worth a try. And as she thought, the other person obviously wasn't familiar.

The woman walked away, back towards the rear of the room. " _Tayel_!" Her companion hurried over. He was, as far as she could tell without her glasses, an identically dressed young man who exchanged words with her quickly. His hair was quite long, she thought with surprise, pulled into a slick blonde ponytail that reached halfway down his back. It looked odd against his dark skin, almost as dark as her father's. Well, it wasn't _unusual_ , but she somehow doubted it was a wig. His voice was deeper than she expected from his height, but he smiled brightly, bowed to her and the woman, and bolted off with a certain childlike eagerness. Early bloomer, maybe.

With the curtain pulled back, she could finally look around the room. Well, she could look the best she could without her glasses. To her immense disappointment, she was hardly in a modern hospital. Everything was white here yes, except for the dark floors and the similarly dark cabinets and desks lining the rear wall. But the cabinets were filled with what looked to be jars and glass jugs, with no orange and white pill bottles or medical equipment in sight.

She gave the woman another cautious once-over. There was no doctor's coat, and no gloves that she could see. A stethoscope was probably too much to ask for, but it was absent as well.

The woman was far from smiling as she turned back to Karma, her mouth pulled into a grim line. She pulled a stool next to the bed and settled down, pointing to herself purposefully. " _Peo_."

"...Peo?"

She nodded, pointing to herself again. " _Peo_." She then pointed to Karma and waited.

"Me?" She pointed to herself.

" _Me_."

"What? Oh, no I-" She flushed, waving a hand. Her name! "No, um, Karishma." She pointed to herself. "Kar-ish-mah."

" _Karishma_?" The accent was strange, with the i short and the a's long, but Karma nodded.

"Peo?" She pointed to the woman, and they smiled for the first time before nodding as well.

The woman looked down to her legs hanging over the bed. Karma realised with embarrassment that she hadn't shaved in nearly two weeks, but the doctor—Peo—was obviously professional enough to look over that. " _Ayashina sendo_?" She pointed to Karma's left leg, which was obviously swollen. Karma hesitated, not sure what she was asking. Peo tried again, pointing to her leg and then making a motion like snapping a twig. Ah. Karma nodded, trying to catalogue words the woman was using. Ayash… sendo. Broken. Probably.

The woman looked at her leg, then nodded. " _Ayashina saldo_?" She pointed to Karma's left arm. There was a sizable lump on her bicep, she realized, and a nasty gash along with it. Honestly, she was surprised she hadn't noticed it before.

She prodded the arm gingerly, then moved it before shaking her head. It felt tacky and slightly numb, as if something had been applied to it, but it was otherwise fine. "No, not… um… Ayashinya…"

" _Ayashina_ ," she corrected. " _Nai ayashina_." She stood up, carefully tilting Karma's head down and gently prodding the back of her head. She flinched at the burst of pain. " _Nada_?"

"Ayashina," Karma mumbled. The doctor laughed.

" _Nai ayashina eto_."

They went over several more scrapes and bruises, and Karma picked up a few basic words. Nai was no, sai was yes. Ayashina meant broken. Ayashi was pain in general. Sendo, leg, saldo, arm. Head was nada, and maybe her neck was danda or maybe that was her shoulders. She was sure she would forget all of it immediately, anyway.

Eventually, Peo pointed between her legs. " _Ayashi_?" she asked, unusually serious. Karma turned bright red and shook her head, covering her lap. Peo seemed somewhat relieved. " _Sa_ …" She stood up, looking her over. " _Iama pinchi_ ," she said, pointing to herself and gesturing away. Karma nodded, and she left to do whatever she needed to.

"...Oh! Wait, Peo!" Peo looked back, surprised. "My phone! My, uh," she stammered, trying to make a rectangular shape with her hands. "Its, its like this, and-"

" _Ah_." She held up a finger and walked the other way before returning with a small, definitely shattered phone. " _Sai_?"

Karma tried to not look disappointed, nodding and taking it gratefully. "Sai…" The screen was covered in fine cracks, but more importantly… She held down the power button, unsurprised to see an empty flashing battery blinking back. "Thought so… but thank you for saving it anyway."

Peo watched the phone light up with interest, obviously curious. "Guess you wouldn't have a charger, huh?" She tried to mime plugging in a cord with no success. "Well… thanks, I guess. For a lot." She did her best to smile reassuringly, and Peo nodded slowly, leaving once again.

Karma looked down at her shattered phone, her heart sinking now that she was alone once again.

She… she didn't seem to be in danger. That was important. But she had no Godly idea where she was or how she'd managed to get there. Honestly, she still wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't dreaming. The pain seemed real enough, but… nothing made _sense_. She couldn't even check her phone to see how much time had passed.

What about her chem exam? How… how did getting lost or kidnapped affect your academic standing? She had only skimmed the syllabus but had a feeling it wasn't covered under excused absences. The thought made her laugh, but it was a hollow laugh at best. Everything was… surreal.

She turned over her broken phone, feeling more empty than anything else. Unwilling to lift her broken leg back into bed, she hugged her pillow deep to her chest, and waited for Peo to return.


	3. Chapter 2

Raiel woke alone. It felt... odd, though he couldn't possibly imagine why. He always woke alone, and that day should have been no different. He started to sniff the room, as if something was there that didn't quite belong, then sneezed. Damned cold. He couldn't smell a wet dog if it had run up his nose.

He toweled his dripping face the best he could before running a tired hand through his long hair, staring at the empty blanket pushed back beside him. He must have been restless. For some reason, the mussed blanket only seemed to emphasize his lonely place in the bed, as if another place had been filled and emptied.

He pulled himself out of bed with something like a rattling sigh. He must truly be sick to be getting so sentimental first thing in the morning.

He treated himself to a long, hot bath, combing soap through his silver hair and purposefully forgetting the looks he'd receive arriving late to breakfast. His brother's house may have been too decadent for his tastes in general, but the indoor baths were a step down from home. But the water was heated, and the steam helped clear his nose as he breathed deeply for the first time in two days.

He looked to the high window with a frown, followed by a cough. Or perhaps he'd arrive to an early lunch? The sun was higher than he'd expected. He felt… oddly rested. Maybe his cold was affecting his sleep.

He dressed himself and prepared for the day, the familiar routines a comfort in his unfamiliar setting. He murmured something under his breath as he braided his hair, watching it flash gold with satisfaction before pulling on a comfortable dark grey ensemble. It would stand out in Sentel's house, if only for being drab, but he didn't mind. His gloves were, as always, the last thing to put on—they were a supple black leather and pulled up to nearly his elbows. Overly cautious, perhaps, but the safety was comforting.

He frowned at the key he had left in his door, sticking upright uselessly. "...Unlocked? Did I leave you unlocked? Really?" The thought distressed him—he _always_ made sure his door was locked before sleeping. Several times, usually. If someone had truly been in his bed…

…No. No, that was absurd. Not to mention suicidal. He must have just forgotten.

That in itself was worrying, but he did his best to ignore the discomfort that accompanied the thought. It was an unhealthy obsession, after all. One of many. Perhaps it was a good sign, being able to break such an important routine without meaning to.

Or maybe he was just dying from his cold.

He coughed again, shaking his head. Well, _now_ he was just self pitying. Though that was probably still better than dying.

* * *

 

Every three years, Raiel and his brothers gathered together. They were all fairly busy people, and it was nice to take a long break on occasion. They took turns to host, and this year was Sentel's year. This hadn't been a problem in the past, as they'd always met in the late spring or early summer. But this year they had decided to meet in fall, and Raiel was outright miserable.

His eldest brother lived too far north for his tastes. Summer had only just wound to an end and a cold autumn storm had already frozen the forest solid around them. He regretted not asking for firewood the night before—the floors above ground weren't heated and he had underestimated the cold. He couldn't imagine living in the manor during winter proper. Truly, his brother's blood ran too hot for their kind.

The land was beautiful during summer, though. The pine forests and hills were an impressive sight, and his brother's domain was a lively and productive one. The local trade relied mostly on veins of gold that wound through the nearby mountains; as a result, the population was small but well to do. Houses tended to be built at least partially below ground and into hills—a precaution taken against the fierce winters—but markets were scattered liberally through the hills during the warm months, and festivals of lights and food were common during the cold ones. Not that Raiel would ever see them, of course. It was far too cold for that nonsense.

There had been an escort waiting outside of his room, accompanied by two guards. The guards, trained as they were, stiffened at his arrival before bowing deeply. The escort managed not to fumble his words for the first time since he'd arrived a week ago. Raiel couldn't blame them for their nervousness; he had... quite a reputation even outside of being their Lord's brother. He did feel a tad chagrined for making them wait so long; he was unused to such constant guard in his own domain. After all, he hardly needed it. He had acknowledged their bows with a nod, and they took a second deep bow before leading him to the dining hall downstairs.

As he suspected, breakfast had been long cleared away by the time he arrived, but the dining room smelled of fresh bread and cider. Lunch was arriving soon. His guards stopped at the doorway, falling easily into place beside two other pairs as his escort announced his arrival to the room. Raiel wanted to sigh at the unnecessary formalities; but the man was only doing his job, and was already reasonably terrified of him, and so Raiel waited until he had rattled off several unnecessarily long titles before entering.

"Raiel!" His eldest brother smiled and looked up from a game of chess stretched across the dining table. Across from him, a small, pale figure turned around for only the briefest glance before returning to the game. Even more guards lined the room, Raiel thought with an inward sigh: two at each of the three entrances. If he hadn't been used to his brother's eccentricities, he would have thought the man paranoid. "We thought you'd finally curled up and died. Good thing I asked for an extra plate, just in case."

"Sentel." He greeted his brother with a sigh, then a sneeze. He knew he looked a mess. His swollen eyes and nose were red beacons on a white face, and his nose refused to stop running. He felt better than he looked, but that didn't mean much. "Thank you for that. And good morning as well, Loriel. It is rare to find both my eldest and youngest brothers together nowadays."

Loriel did not look up from his game, but nodded once. Raiel took no offense—his youngest sibling spoke few words, but what he did speak was purposeful.

"Will the others be joining us for lunch? Raiel asked. Sentel shrugged.

"Who knows? The ferret has been shadowing Peo all day, and if Kaitel drank as much as I suspect last night he might not join us until dinner."

Raiel grinned at the fresh memory. "Or tomorrow's breakfast." Sentel laughed in agreement, and they quickly shared several more jabs at their undoubtedly hungover brother's expense.

"Check," Loriel murmured eventually, pushing a knight to a bishop and trading the bishop for a pawn. "I'm going to win."

"I know, but I won't get better if I sit here and give in, now, will I?" Loriel only shrugged and continued moving pieces. Raiel watched them play with amusement, more so in the way they were playing than in the game.

Loriel, his youngest brother of five, was cursed. All five of them were, of course. It was an ancient fault of their kind.

Curses varied wildly with intensity and effect, sometimes affecting others, sometimes themselves, and sometimes both. A curse could even only affect one's children. But of all of the curses Raiel knew of, Loriel's was among the worst to live with.

He felt the thoughts and feelings of others forced into his own. It made life difficult, to say the least. Crowds were impossible for him, yes, but even a room of ten could be overwhelming. He was still a young man, subjected to experience every passing thought and emotion around him. Things normally filtered and held back were a constant barrage. Not only that, but the young boy was born with an uncommon mind, one that caused him to obsess over his interests to the point of compulsion, and gave him great difficulty with others even outside of his curse.

Raiel frowned, looking again at the guards in the room. The extra protection now seemed inconsiderate as well as indulgent.

"Your pity is noted," Loriel said dryly, not looking up as he swapped knights on the board. "I'm fine. Check."

Well, that was that, Raiel supposed.

Raiel watched with fascination as his eldest brother's thoughts were translated to moves on the board. It looked to any outsider as if Loriel was playing chess against himself, but his moves were quick and purposeful and and one side was clearly ahead. Loriel was toying with him, Raiel realised. He was trying to remove all of his opponent's pawns before he moved in for checkmate. Sentel had realised this as well, and was trying to take advantage where he could. He took Loriel's queen with a lopsided smirk, which disappeared as his own was taken two moves later. Finally, all of his pawns were gone, and he surrendered knowing a quick checkmate was inevitable.

"You give up too quickly," Loriel complained with a frown as he reset the board.

Sentel shrugged. "I know when I'm beat." Loriel grumbled something like 'then why play at all,' but continued setting the board while Sentel stood to join his other brother. "Still dying?"

"Slowly and awfully," Raiel confirmed, unable to hold back another well-timed sneeze. "I know you wish me to stay, but I'd feel better leaving for home in the morning in case this becomes worse."

Sentel reached out to pat his shoulder, ignoring Raiel's deep flinch and instinctive step back. "Of course, brother. We're just glad to see you here, you know."

Raiel swallowed, looking away. "I… I wish you wouldn't do that," he muttered, pulling his brother's hand away with a gloved hand and dropping it quickly. Sentel's smile fell a bit, but his expression was still warm.

"Don't worry, I won't catch anything." He tried to reach out again, but stopped when Raiel pulled his arm back. "Honestly! You're not a viper. I worry about you sometimes."

Raiel closed his eyes with frustration and more than a hint of shame. "I... wish I could share your ease, brother. But to speak frankly, your _curse_ gives you a very different view of others than my own."

The words pierced the calm of the room like needles, but Raiel refused to regret them.

"I am sorry to have offended you, brother," Sentel murmured, pulling his hand back fully. "I only meant to offer comfort."

Raiel shook his head, forcing a weary smile. "No comfort can come of touch, I'm afraid." A pause. "Not from you, in any case. I should hope."

His brother laughed at that, turning to the large windows overlooking the dining table with false insult. "How rude! Am I not pretty enough for you, then?"

"You're plenty pretty," Raiel said dryly, and it was true. Even to those unaffected by his brother's curse, Sentel was handsome, and he was well aware. His skin hovered between cinnamon and ochre, the bronze tone highlighting the cascade of gentle gold flowing over his shoulders to his waist. He looked to be in a human's mid-twenties, and was fine featured with cherubic lips and wide, curved eyes that gave the illusion of a perpetual smile. He was fit, tall, and if rumors were to be believed, a devil behind bedroom doors. Honey eyes shone as gold as gold as his hair, their slitted black pupils and his sharp black nails the only clues to his inhumanity at the moment. Otherwise…

He was handsome. The most handsome man Raiel had ever seen, certainly. And his curse… well. He had the easiest burden to bear among the brothers, Raiel thought bitterly. That was certain.

Raiel envied him in every way, though he'd never admit it aloud.

Loriel looked back at him with a sly grin and Raiel gave a warning look. Not your business. Loriel turned back to the chessboard but the grin remained.

If Sentel noticed the exchange, he ignored it. "Well, it's only a matter of time, isn't it?" he said at last, still looking to the forest outside. "We're all around that age. At least the oldest of us, right, Raiel?" He turned around with a grin. "Any trouble in bed recently?"

"Uncle's children are older and still not mated," Raiel said dryly, purposefully ignoring his last question. "And it's hardly a race."

"But they're women," he objected. "The eldest will be waiting another five years before she starts popping out eggs."

" _Sentel_!"

"Pardon my language," he amended, though he didn't sound remotely sorry. "You understand what I meant, though, yes? Surely you have a lonely heart somewhere under there." He sighed dramatically and pulled a sad face. "I'm a lonely bachelor myself, you know, overdue for love… I worry sometimes, you know. What if we can't tell if she's immune to my charms?"

"Any woman immune to your _charms_ is going to throw you out of bed the first night," Raiel teased, walking past Sentel to sit at the table. He made an offended noise, but didn't reply.

"A game?" Loriel offered, turning black's side towards him as he sat.

"Hmm… I'm much worse than he is, you know."

"I know. Its funny to watch." Well, he couldn't argue with that. He pushed a pawn forward with another sigh, letting Loriel take over the rest.

They had only finished opening moves when a side door propped itself open and their middle brother strode in. He bowed quickly to the room, long blonde hair glowing as it swung against his black doctor's uniform. "Gentleman! Pardon the interruption." He spoke quickly as he smiled, his fangs glowing just as bright against his dark skin. Two guards stumbled in after him, clearly having trouble keeping up with the small man. An escort appeared a moment later, obviously out of breath and unable to announce his charge's entrance with anything but a wheeze.

Sentel greeted him with a smaller bow of his own. "Not at all—we're glad you decided to join us. Now, what's the rush? Afraid to miss lunch?" Tayel ignored the question, striding quickly to him and speaking low and fast. Sentel's smile faded to a frown, then a scowl. He replied in a similarly fast murmur, reaching into his pocket where he kept a small roll of paper and wax. Gold sparks flew as he scribbled something onto the paper, gold letters fading to black under his fingertips. Satisfied, he held the wax rod above the paper. The tip melted easily and he pressed his signet ring into the pool of red liquid it formed, sealing it officially. Tayel took the paper with a nod, bowed to the room, then left as quickly as he had entered, his guards and escort struggling to keep up.

Sentel watched him leave deep in thought, tapping his foot. "What was that all about?" Raiel wondered aloud. Sentel didn't respond, foot still tapping. "Sentel?"

"He wanted a translator," Loriel said without prompt.

"A… translator."

Sentel's foot stopped. "Well… yes. In a sense. I gave him a summons for one, anyway." He gave a long, exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his gold waves. "Someone snuck a whore into the castle last night. She was injured, but she doesn't speak Alic and Tayel can't get anyone to fess up to bringing her in. So, now he wants to question her himself. Hence the translator."

Raiel frowned. Women weren't generally allowed into the manor. Sentel's curse was too bothersome otherwise. But, occasionally, someone brought a woman in instead of going out to the city brothel. Normally punishment would be a slap on the wrist, but now Sentel's tone was unusually grim. "I'm more concerned that she's injured," he said with narrowed eyes. "If someone's been beating women in my house… I'll have their hands mounted on the city gates by evening."

"She slipped and fell on her own. He and Peo were certain," Loriel corrected. "You can't move into check, Raiel. Leave the pawn there."

Sentel paused before he let out a small sigh. "Well, an accident is better than the alternative! Though…" Another pause. "Honestly, now I'm more concerned that someone was snuck in under our noses. You said she doesn't speak Alic? Odd."

Raiel hummed in agreement. "A foreigner appears in the house while you host us. That's a hard coincidence to swallow at best. I doubt a foreign whore could find her way all the way out here in a storm. And _then,_ slip past your wards."

Sentel spun his crest ring around his finger, still thinking. "My thoughts exactly. But Tayel was confident the girl was no assassin, and I trust her judgement."

"Did she say _why_?"

Sentel shrugged while Loriel explained. "She was clean, well fed, pretty, and wandering in circles around the place in a sheet smelling like sex. Nothing she had on her was spelled, and she wasn't magic herself." He shrugged. "Sounds like a whore to me.'

Raiel thought for a long moment. "She could still be a spy," he offered. "And someone had to let her in, in any case."

"Or she could be one of Sentel's spurned lovers," Loriel countered. "Raiel, your move."

Raiel moved his own knight with a laugh, then a frown. "That's… not unreasonable, actually," he said finally. "If she's been here before, she'd know how the wards work, or at least know someone who works here. And she'd probably know you'd be home."

Sentel was suddenly deep in thought, still twisting his ring. "...Loriel. Did Tayel picture her? Or say if she has red hair, and a tattoo across her neck?" He paused. "Or a dark woman with white tattoos? No, wait, she's..." Another, longer pause. "Anyone with wings? Or, no, that's an important detail to forget. Hmm…"

Raiel rolled his eyes as Loriel shut his and grimaced. "Sentel, please," he whined, covering his ears futily. Sentel quickly apologized, shaking his head and waving his hand.

"...Well," he said finally, "if she's been working here locally, I'll recognize her, anyway." He pointedly ignored the 'of course you would,' that Raiel slipped out. "It's the language that's bothering me now… but no matter. I'll check up on that later. Say, did Tayel think _anything_ about her hair, at least?"

Loriel made a face. "Ask him yourself. Check."

"It's been ten turns," Raiel argued, but the boy was right. His queen was dead if he blocked as well, which would then lead back to check… He flicked his king over with a sigh. "I told you I was worse."

"And it's still funny," Loriel agreed. "Play me again."

* * *

 

Lunch was a tiny meal compared to the banquet the night before, but it was filling and warm and suited Raiel quite well. After washing up and chatting a while longer, he headed to the doctor's workshop to make a batch of medicine for the long trip home. Thankfully, the medical wing was sealed underground; his escort and guards stopped at the stairway entrance and bowed, letting him pass alone.

Peo greeted him warmly downstairs, and wouldn't let him pay for materials. She'd charge his brother, she said, and Raiel convinced her to charge double before he began his work.

Alchemy was his passion, and the laboratory was where he was truly at home. The silence was nice, and knowing that he was alone was no small comfort. The smell of fuel and the sound of boiling water brought him peace, as did the gentle chopping and grinding of ingredients and the sifting sounds of powders. The gentle static of magic clung to the air and he breathed it in deeply, doing his best not to sneeze over his work and failing at least twice.

A cold was a cold, and would disappear in time, but he could at least control his symptoms. He knew all of the recipes by heart—he made them far too often to forget them. Usually he made them for _other_ sick people, but it was only a matter of time, he supposed.

He worked quietly, measuring by sight with practiced ease. Mint, sage, silver pine... The exact weights weren't as important as their interactions once a spell was introduced. Though too much sage might make him tired. He considered his piles of herbs carefully before he took a pinch of sage and discarded it into a bowl at his side. Better safe than sorry, he supposed.

Eventually, everything was chopped fine, distilled, and brewing in a small kettle. As soon as the fire was lit, the familiar sound of Sentel's laughter from the door brought a sigh to his lips. So much for peace. To his surprise, though, the voice continued past his door, talking easily with Tayel and an older woman. What was Sentel doing in the medical hall if he wasn't set on annoying him?

He pressed four fingers into his gloved wrist, whispered a command, and watched four lights flash. Four minutes. He could spare that at least to find out what his brothers were scheming now. "I'll be right back," he told the kettle. "Don't wander off now." It sat, as a kettle did, on its boiler. It didn't object, at least.

The group was loud, and catching up to them was easy. To Raiel's surprise, Loriel was with them, looking incredibly unhappy.

"Ah, Raiel," Tayel greeted cheerily. "You look awful, worse than last night."

"I feel worse as well." They exchanged grins.

Tayel's curse—to force the truth from himself and those around him—caused all sorts of troubles, especially in their youth. Raiel found it refreshing, though, and supposed mutual truthfulness was a helpful curse for a doctor. "May I ask a name of your-" He paused and bowed slightly. "Ah, Rhan! Pardon me, it's been years. I hardly recognized you, I'm afraid."

The old woman bowed before standing, as straight and dignified as Peo. They looked similar, he noted once again, aside from the obvious wear of age that now lined Rhan's eyes and mouth. Though it was probably to be expected of a mother and daughter.

"It's been thirty three years, specifically. I'm an old bugger now, I know, I know." She returned his bow shortly; it would have struck him as rude from anyone else, but Rhan was even more short than her daughter. "I hate to intrude, but Tayel summoned me a bit ago. Came rapping at my door with big puppy eyes..." She pinched his cheek with an evil grin. "The overgrown ferret! Can't say no to that face, eh?"

Tayel, he realized, had a faint gold glow still shining behind his glasses. "You changed?"

Tayel looked a bit embarrassed and shrugged. "I did to get to her home, but we used a portal to come back. I'm not _that_ fast.."

Sentel nodded. "Rhan's the only person I know nearby who uses translation magic. Well, besides Kaitel, maybe, but… I wouldn't trust him to interrogate anyone, honestly." He shrugged apologetically to Rhan, who chuckled.

"Translation magic…?" Raiel puzzled for a moment. "Oh, right. Your mystery guest. Well, good luck, I suppose."

"I don't want to be here," Loriel said suddenly, his arms still crossed across his chest as he stood as far away from the old woman as possible. "It's too crowded and I don't like new people and I _don't_ like people thinking in other languages. It mixes up my head."

Sentel set a hand on his shoulder, which was shrugged off. "I'm sorry, Loriel, but we need to know how she got into the castle, and we can't guarantee that she'll talk to us at all."

"I don't want to be here."

"I know, and if it becomes too much, you can leave." Loriel continued to frown, his mood unchanged. Sentel let him sulk as he turned back to his old friend. "Thank you for coming on such short notice, by the way. I know nearly nothing of language magic myself, but I gave you little time to prepare, I'm sure."

Rhan waved her hand flippantly. "No preparation is needed for what I do. Not the way I was taught, in any case… It's is a dying art now that the common tongues are widespread, you know. But thankfully," she chuckled, "it still has its uses yet."

Sentel agreed, then turned to his oldest sibling with a beaming smile. "Raiel, join us! It's fascinating stuff, yes?" Loriel made an annoyed noise behind him—another person in the room was the last thing he'd enjoy.

"I'll have to decline today. It's less stress on Loriel, and honestly I could care less anyway." He spoke easily, unable to feign an excuse in Tayel's presence. "I was working."

Sentel nodded, nonplussed. "Make something for broken bones while you're there. And a concussion."

"Not my job."

"I know, but Peo's been busy and you're much faster anyway."

Raiel scowled. "Fine, but I'm charging you double my rates for my services." He retreated back to Peo's lab, leaving Sentel's protests behind. He needed to dry the batch of herbs for grinding and reuse the kettle for a hot mint tea. It was getting late, and he had a long flight ahead of him the next morning.

He cooled the kettle before he lit another boiler with a grumble and a sneeze. He was tired, but at least the two other medicines were fast to make. And he was going to charge his brother _triple_.


	4. Chapter 3

The day had passed slowly. Agonizingly slowly. Peo visited her only twice, once to bring her a bowl of oddly seasoned roast beef and painkillers and once to help her to the small toilet in the hallway outside. Again, she was struck by the disjointedness of the place. They had plumbing, obviously, but no electricity or artificial lighting she could see. Light came from strangely bright oil lamps hung from the ceiling, which struck her as odd in all sorts of ways. Their flames didn't look nearly big enough to light the room as they did, in any case. There was some indoor heating at least; it was warm in the small clinic, though there was no hint of a fireplace she could find. And the sink had both cold and hot handles, so they were heating water somehow. They _definitely_ didn't have cell towers. Not that she could have used one anyway.

She flipped her phone in her hands and felt oddly disconnected. Her phone was her lifeline, and having it dead and shattered was uncomfortable to say the least. Her laptop died the previous semester, so she had stuffed her Android with everything she could possibly need on the go. Music, podcasts, games, a million contacts for friends and family, documents, coupons, and even a few movies she'd loved or been meaning to watch. She wished she could sit down and listen to her weekly bad movie roundup to pass the time, at least. But her phone was beyond dead, and now wouldn't even light up to show the empty battery screen.

Karma wished she could text her mom to ask for advice, but that was out of the question at that point.

She was still fidgeting with her dead phone when a crowd of voices approached, three of them male. She panicked, remembering she was still in a thin slip of a dress, and quickly grabbed the pillow from the bed to cover her chest. She squeezed it with flushed cheeks. Better to appear childish than to have her breasts falling out.

Four people rounded the corner—the first of them she recognized from before. Peo's assistant. He grinned when he saw her, then spoke to the old woman beside him in that strange smooth language. She reminded Karma of Peo, strong and regal, especially with eyes as crisp blue as her shawl.

Karma's eyes widened as a tall blonde figure rounded the corner. Her heart hammered and if she had been standing her knees would have gone week. God, he was… gorgeous. Handsome was too weak a word. He was golden: his hair, his skin, his… eyes? He wasn't close enough for her to see most of his face—her lack of glasses made sure of that—but she suddenly and inexplicably _needed_ him. Her face heated, and suddenly the pillow held against her chest was humiliating. Just sitting there and existing was humiliating. Oh God. Oh God. She was wet and wanted to die.

She didn't even notice a third, fair boy enter behind him, looking even younger than Peo's assistant and glaring at her from under wild curls of platinum blonde. When she later did, he was pressed against the back wall and staring at the floor with a foul mood.

" _Karishma_?" Peo's assistant asked brightly as he walked up to her. Again, his voice didn't match his appearance. It sounded older than he looked… or was it? Now that he was close, she realized with faint surprise that he was a grown man after all, slender and short as he was. He wore oval glasses as well, she noted. An adult indeed.

Her eyes could only rest on him for a bit though, as her gaze was magnetically drawn back to the blonde man behind him. She nodded to whatever was said to her, swallowing dryly and trying and failing to look away from the man. Unbid thoughts rose in her as her legs clenched, and she wanted to touch him, stroke his golden hair, touch his lips, make him-

The assistant tugged the curtain around the bed to cut her gaze from him.

It was as if a spell had broken. She gasped for air, her head reeling as she doubled over. She could hear the man next to her talking, but she could only cover her face and try not to be sick as her head spun. "What was that?" she whispered to no one, feelings of unconditional lust and adoration ripped from her as quickly as they came. When she looked up to the assistant, he was arguing with someone, then turned down to her almost apologetically.

His eyes, she realized suddenly, were like a cats. They shone pale blue and friendly behind his glasses, but... his pupils were thin slits as they stared into her, shifting between black and an almost glowing gold. She broke his gaze feeling somewhat lightheaded. Those… those weren't contacts. Probably. What that meant was an entirely different question.

He pulled the curtain back slightly, and the golden man was gone from the group. Or not; she heard his voice complaining from the front of her cot, which soon faded into grumbling. Meanwhile, the old woman took to the stool next to her, pulling one of Karma's hands into her own as she closed her eyes.

"What's… going on?" she murmured, still lightheaded as she looked to the figures scattered around the room. "What was that?"

" _That would be a curse, my child_ ," the old woman said, making Karma start. " _It is strong, but as long as you are out of view it cannot affect you_." It… didn't _sound_ like English, but she clearly understood what was said. It was like listening to a heavy foreign accent, almost.

"Curse?" Karma repeated, more anxious than before as the words registered. "Am, am I-"

" _The curse is not yours but his_ ," the woman laughed, her eyes still closed. " _But until your monthly bleedings stop for good, you should stay out of his sight if you do not wish to feel it again._ " The woman's tone was kind, and Karma relaxed a bit, even if she didn't quite understand what they meant.

"You speak English?" she asked with relief, confused when the woman shook her head.

" _No, but you may speak freely with me. I am Rhan. Karishma, yes_?"

"Yes," she agreed, more hesitantly. The strangeness of the situation still settled uneasily over her, like a bad feeling she couldn't shake off. "Can I ask where we are?"

" _We're in the doctor's wing, underneath the manor._ "

Manor? "No, no, I meant-" She floundered, trying to gesture with one hand taken by the old woman and the other by her pillow. "This whole place. What country is this?"

Rhan seemed somewhat surprised by her answer, but remained composed. " _You're in the domain of Lord Sentel, in the north of Arista."_ Karma's brows pulled together in confusion. Arista? Where the hell was _Arista_? And she had certainly never heard of a Lord Sentel—it sounded fake, like a figure in a bad period drama. She couldn't ask anything before Rhan added another question of her own. " _Now Karishma, we must ask. Who brought you here? How did you get inside_?"

"Who… brought me here?" A new wave of panic took over her. "Was I kidnapped?"

The old woman's voice remained steady. " _Just tell us what you remember about coming here_."

"I…" Her head spun. "I don't remember."

Rhan frowned. " _What do you not remember_?"

"Everything? I…" Karma shook her head, her fear giving way to numbness once again as she recalled the previous night. "I was… I was just in the dorm, studying for a class, and when I woke up, I was... here. In the… the manor."

" _You're a student_?" The woman looked surprised, and Peo's assistant looked down to her with interest. He said something to the woman, who nodded. " _Where do you study? Who teaches you_?"

"The University of Miami, and uh, my teachers, I guess. I'm a chemistry major," she added.

The woman frowned. " _You work while you attend a university?_ "

Karma nodded, somewhat surprised. It was just office work, helping the administration catalogue records that hadn't been digitized yet. She wasn't sure how they knew she was working, though. But then, it wasn't _uncommon_ , right? "I can't say I enjoy it, but the hours are flexible and school's hardly cheap. It's just until I graduate, anyway." The woman seemed unusually sympathetic at that, patting her hand reassuringly before changing the subject. Odd.

They talked back and forth for a while, but frustratingly, Karma seemed to do most of the talking. The few questions she could ask were answered cryptically or ignored outright. They all wanted to know who she was and who she was working with. They also asked about her phone. They thought it was… magic, somehow? But they seemed to lose interest after she told them it was broken and inoperable.

Obviously, they thought that she had snuck in intentionally, and it seemed to take an eternity to convince them she knew just as much as she did. Eventually, she snapped in frustration.

"I don't know how I got here, and I don't want to be here! I never wanted to be here, I never planned to be here, and I certainly wasn't plotting with some stranger to get in! What about that is so difficult to understand!" She looked to the rest of the room almost pleadingly, still a bit aggravated and now a bit panicked. "I just want to be home! Does nobody here know how to send me back? I have a major test in two days and kidnapping isn't covered in the syllabus!"

Rhan began to ask something else, but was interrupted by the small blonde figure who had been sulking in the background. He was suddenly aggravated, pointing to Karma intently and speaking fast. " _Calm down_ ," the woman chided, " _I'll ask. Karishma. What exactly happened before you woke up here? Be specific._ "

What was there to say? "It was… it was just a Friday. I was just studying," she murmured, trying to calm down and think back. She walked through her evening, trying to highlight anything important. "I was in the dorm… I ate pizza… um… I took a shower… studied… and then..." She closed her eyes thought about throwing her clothes off in the heat, rubbing her sheets into herself, and blushed. She couldn't say that out loud! "...I just masturbated and fell asleep," she finished lamely. Her eyes opened at the same time the woman's did; she jerked her hands back and covered her mouth, mortified. Oh God. Oh Christ. Had she just said that out loud?

The woman laughed, and Karma wanted to sink into the bed and die. She didn't have long to do so before the young man was shouting again, somewhat frantically now. He looked… worried, almost. He was pointing at her and then pacing back and forth, nearly on the verge of tears. The others argued with him at length before Rhena turned back to Karma, clearly frustrated herself. "What's wrong?" she asked, but the woman shook her head and grabbed her hand, closing her eyes again.

" _Don't bother—I can't understand you unless you hold my hand."_ Her hand? Karma opened her mouth to ask about that, but the woman interrupted her. " _Karishma, please, this is important. What season is it? What season do you last remember?_ "

What kind of question was that? "Spring just started, right?" she said slowly. "It's… exam season…" The old woman nodded, dropping her hand and standing up. "Um, what season is it now?" She asked quickly, growing increasingly nervous as the woman spoke, but now in that strange language without Karma's understanding. "Can… can you still hear me? What year is it?"

Her heart began to race as Rhan walked away and all four of them began to talk without her. Her hand… she had to hold hands. Isn't that what she had said? Did that mean no one could understand her again?

Tears began to well again, as everything she had been pushing back threatened to boil over. "Wait! Where am I? What… what's going to happen now?" No one looked her way. "Do you know… do you know how I got here? Can you send me back?" Tears began to flow in earnest. "Can—can anyone help me? I need to reach my parents. I don't… if this is a dream I want to wake up." Still, no one turned to look at her.

She buried her head back into the pillow, trying to keep her breaths from turning into sobs. Everything was wrong, and the wrongness had finally piled too high; the camel's back was broken, and her tears wouldn't stop.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Things were… _wrong_! Everything was strange, nothing was working how it should! She didn't know what was happening, where she was, or if anything was even real. People were shouting, her head was throbbing again, and everything was spinning.

What was happening to her?

" _Dol_." A soft, low voice appeared in front of her, making her start and bury her head deeper. " _Aya senda_." She didn't dare look up, still wiping her tears into the pillow. Whoever it was was crouched in front of her, then pushed her hair behind her shoulder with what felt like a gloved hand. She shuddered at the feeling, and it left her as the figure stood again." _Isuro_ ," they murmured, almost apologetically, and she heard them begin to walk away.

She pried her eyes open in time to see a figure in dark grey walking away from her, a pale silver braid hanging past the pale hand at his side.

That hair…

"Wait!" she shouted louder than she meant to, scrambling to her feet after him. That hair—she had woken up by that hair! His hand, if she could grab his hand, if she could ask him-

He stopped, turning around in surprise and then horror as she lunged for his bare hand. He was… young, she registered faintly. Too young to have white hair.

He pulled his hand back from her, but not quickly enough. It brushed her bare shoulder for just a moment as she fell onto her broken leg. She felt her fractured femur snap cleanly underneath her, her scream silencing the room for only a moment before chaos descended.

* * *

Raiel stumbled back against the wall, feeling sick. Nausea brought bile to his throat, and he could feel his mouth watering as he clamped a hand over it. He couldn't look at the crying figure below him, but the scream echoed in his mind. That scream…

"Karishma? Karishma, are you alright?" Sentel was at her side in a moment, ready to help her up. She tried to stand, but another cry escaped her as she did, and sobs wracked her as she writhed on the floor. Sentel reached down to comfort her, sending another wave of terror running through Raiel.

"Don't touch her!" Raiel snapped, his shout turning into a cough. Sentel looked up to him with confusion before turning pale.

"Did you-"

Raiel pulled a shaking hand back to his face. He tried to breathe deeply, swallow back the bile. "Her shoulder…" He took a rattling breath, turning to lean against the wall. "I don't know… how much I…"

Not again. No, not again. Not now.

Tayel was immediately in action, ripping a sheet from a neighboring cot and throwing it over the shaking and crying figure on the floor. "Sentel, get her back on the bed. Don't touch her skin. Rhen, Loriel, leave, please. Find Peo and send her to the lab right away." He ran back to the cabinets behind them, ignoring the now screaming girl behind him and pulling out a large jar of white powder while he talked. "Raiel, go to the lab, start on an antidote. There's a generic starter in the front cabinets. Its labeled. I'll bring you belladonna as soon as I can." He spooned the powder into a glass of water, stirring quickly as the water flashed gold. "Sentel, cover her and hold her still—she needs to drink this, it's only spreading if she's fighting it. She doesn't need to be awake for this.

"Raiel!" His name pulled him back into focus, the girl's screaming a dull siren of alarm in his ears. Tayel was glaring at him, pointing to the hallway. " _Now_ , Raiel! Move!"

The world was still spinning, slightly out of focus. "I-"

"Move, damn you!" Tayel shoved him back with too much force for his small frame, sending his brother flying across the room and into the hallway. Raiel hit the wall with a crack, the wind knocked out of his chest. The pain snapped him back, and he held the wall to steady himself.

Antidote...

She needed an antidote. He had to start now.

He ran back to the laboratory, lighting burners with a flick of his wrist and searching the cabinets for an antidote starter. He had to dig for it—the clay jug was covered in dust—but he felt the magic sealing it and prayed that it was still usable.

The liquid poured into his pot with a thick amber color and astringent smell. It was strong and still serviceable. He didn't allow himself any relief—it was still an hour of processing with a starter, and any step could go wrong.

He had no idea how much contact he'd had with the girl, or if he'd touched the open wound on her shoulder. She might have an hour, she might have two, or she might not have one at all. He wouldn't know until he was finished or she was dead.

* * *

Raiel's curse was poison. He, himself, was poison. His blood, his skin, his hair... It was a poison Tayel could never identify, something magic that spread invisibly across any animal poisoned and turned them into poison as well. Until they died, they would spread death to whoever touched them, and to whoever touched them. Not that they usually lived long enough to spread anything.

Most animals died nearly instantly, though larger ones could last several minutes and more powerful creatures could last days at a time. But those cases were few and far between. Death usually came quickly.

Holding a poison hand killed a human in five minutes. A kiss to the cheek killed in thirty. A kiss to the lips in twenty. A brush of the shoulder he had never seen. But open wounds carried poison like a wick, spreading it through the body in a burning, all consuming maelstrom. A wound, any wound, would kill in a minute.

It was not a peaceful death, either. They had no record of what pain his poison caused humans, as anyone he'd ever touched had died or suppressed the incident completely. During the poisoning, they could only cry, then scream.

Tayel watched his brother shiver and bury his face in his hands. He had no doubt that the girl's screams still rang through his ears.

Raiel hadn't left the infirmary since he gave her the antidote. Tayel had put her into a numbed sleep, after all, and so it was impossible to know whether it had worked or not. All they could do was wait.

After what felt like days, Tayel's wrist flashed three times and he let out a small sigh of relief. The girl had lasted three hours, the longest anyone had lived from a poison touch untreated.

The antidote had worked. She was safe.

"It's been three hours. She lives, brother," Tayel murmured, taking a seat next to him. Tayel had stayed as well, of course, looking after both his patient and his sibling. The bed creaked, and Raiel looked up quickly to the girl's cot. But she laid still, deep in a drug induced stupor. He hung his head again.

"I was careless. No one should have been in danger." Tayel reached for him, intending to comfort him. "Do not touch me. Please." Tayel pulled his hand back with a small frown.

"You should visit mother," he said quietly. "You have been too long without another's touch and it concerns all of us to see you this way."

"And what good does my touch bring?" It was loud, nearly a snarl, and he looked up guiltily to the girl before his gloved hands balled into fists. His voice had wavered, and Tayel's heart ached for him.

"Touch is important," he insisted. "It comforts and heals. We're meant to touch. Even you."

Tayel was quiet for a moment. "I wish you would let me touch you, brother. If only to settle my own nerves seeing you this way."

Raiel allowed a soft smile—he appreciated Tayel's bluntness, he knew. "My brothers are as susceptible as anyone. We both know that."

A true, but pitiful excuse. "You couldn't kill me in an hour. And there's still fresh antidote in the other room." His tone was serious, and he watched Raiel with a grim face. "Though I would ask you to push your braid the other way."

Raiel laughed quietly and, after a long moment, he reached back to tuck his white braid into his shirt. "There. Even safer." The words were barely out of his mouth before Tayel had taken off his glasses, and arms were wrapped tightly around him, squeezing his chest with thin but impossibly strong arms. After another long moment, Raiel reached back, pulled the cot's sheet over his brother's exposed head, and pulled him into an embrace of his own before he wept.

He wept silently, and Tayel closed his eyes, doing his best to hold his brother steadily. Both of them were cold, and Tayel wished again he could offer the comforting warmth a human body offered. But they were not human, and perhaps their cold embrace was a comfort in itself. Raiel's chest shook with sobs only twice, no doubt ripping open wounds in his heart he had tried so desperately to heal. It hurt to watch his brother suffer, and it hurt to know that no medicine could possibly ease the pain.

"It's been five years, hasn't it?" Tayel murmured, his voice no doubt muffled by the sheet. "Since this happened."

"It's been two," Raiel murmured back, surprising him. "A maid came across one of my hairs cleaning my room. Her name was Ao." He paused and Tayel winced, knowing immediately where the story led.

"I was away and could make no antidote. She knew this and locked herself in my room to keep the poison from spreading."

"I'm sorry, Raiel."

"I found her the next day. I still dream about finding her on my bed. Or killing her otherwise."

"I'm sorry."

"She looked like her." Tayel felt his brother shift as he raised his gaze to the woman laying across from him. "That was the first thing I thought of when I saw her, you know. When I walked in, I thought she looked like Ao. When she reached for me…" He shook his head, incredulous. "It was… it was my nightmares come to life."

"But she lives, brother." Tayel's grip tightened fiercely, desperately. "She lives. You saved her."

"I… saved no one," he said, and Tayel knew he thought it true. Raiel dropped his arms from his brother and leaned away. Tayel removed himself somewhat reluctantly. They both watched the woman in silence as she slept peacefully through the chaos she had caused.

Tayel had never met Ao, but she must have been quite the figure. The girl, Karishma, was a striking sight on her own. The girl was fairly dark, with ashen brown skin. Smatterings of dark beauty marks covered her, he knew, and pale freckles were dusted everywhere the sun had ever touched her. Her hair was to her shoulders, curled and black as midnight—a striking color, to say the least. But it looked natural enough, and any other hair was the same dark tone. She was awfully well fed, whoever she was, and Tayel couldn't find a straight line anywhere on her figure. Even her face was rounded, with plump cheeks, a deep cupid's bow, and a large, regal looking hooked nose with a strange silver piercing on one side. She was not the face of traditional beauty, no, but Tayel wouldn't have thought her out of place in a king's harem.

"Do you miss her?" Tayel asked, almost without meaning to. Obviously Raiel regretted her death, but he had no idea if they were close.

Raiel hummed in agreement, much calmer than he had been before. "I do. We did not speak often, but I enjoyed her company. It seemed everyone knew her and loved her, somehow." He smiled without joy. "Her fiancé loved her terribly. Enough to take his own life shortly after."

" _Ayah_ ," Tayel breathed softly, looking up to the ceiling. It was nearly dark, with only a candle lighting the room, but his eyes still saw the faint cracks and stains in the whitewashed ceiling. He traced them with tired eyes, wanting to hold his brother again. "I'm sorry, Raiel. I wish I had known."

"I know. I hid it intentionally." He laughed quietly. "I'm only surprised it took two years for you to find out. You all worry over me too much, and it annoys me. You especially so."

Fierce anger ran through Tayel, and he rose to his feet with balled fists. "You idiot!" he hissed loudly, startling his brother. "Of course we worry over you! And of course I worry over you most—I'm the only one you can't lie to!" His lip snarled up, revealing fangs. "Tell me what that says about your own state, then, and why I shouldn't care of it!"

Raiel looked away. Quiet. Eventually, Tayel's hackles lowered, and he sank back onto the cot with a sigh. "Honestly, you're a dunce," he complained. "I hope you invent a potion of telling the truth to your own damn self and spare the rest of us."

Raiel gave him a lopsided smirk as he looked up. "Why would I need to when you're a day away?" Tayel grinned back with more teeth. Teasing, at least, slipped past his filter of truth much more leniently.

"Then I shall begin charging you for my services, at twice my usual rates."

"If you must." He stood up, stretching stiff muscles. "What do I owe you for today, then?"

"A good night's sleep." Tayel's face softened and he pat his brothers arm, relieved that he did not pull away. "You have a long flight ahead of you tomorrow, yes? Get some rest. And try not to freeze, you big dumb lizard."

Raiel scoffed. "Big words from an overgrown ferret." He laughed at his brothers mock offense, reaching down to muss his hair with a wicked grin. Tayel grinned back, thrilled that his brother had touched him first. "It's funny because it's true."


	5. Chapter 4

Breakfast the next morning was awkward, and Raiel quickly wished he had skipped it altogether. Everyone around him did their best to ignore the previous day's events, but Tayel's curse kept bringing the incident back to the conversation unintentionally. It didn't help that Kaitel, the second youngest, had indeed slept through the previous day. He was obviously confused about the entire situation, and his hangover certainly didn't help.

"I don't understand all of this," he groaned eventually, removing his round glasses and dragging a palm down his face. "Did Raiel kill a girl or not?"

"Kaitel!" Tayel and Sentel growled at once, baring fangs at their unrustled sibling. The guards around the room stiffened at the sound, Raiel noted with dim amusement. Well, he couldn't blame them for being on edge. Though if a true fight were to break out at the table, their short swords might as well have be fencing sabres for all the help they would be.

Kaitel remained nonplussed, though, and only shook his head before Raiel a small sideways glance. Raiel did his best to ignore it and continued to eat his sausage in silence. "He didn't, right? I don't get the dancing around it is all. Can we all say it happened, it turned out alright, and then maybe talk about something more pleasant?"

"Please," Raiel agreed tonelessly. "Let's talk of something else."

The resulting silence was nicer than anything else had been so far.

Kaitel was somehow even more honest than Tayel. He was a scholar at heart and spent more time with books than people, wearing his heart on his sleeve at every waking moment. He was, in a way, an open book himself. Raiel knew he was incredibly smart and well loved by his people, but his lack of any _resemblance_ of tact made him an unpredictable force wherever conversations were to be found. He said whatever came to mind as soon as it came, and it annoyed Raiel to no end.

He was Raiel's least favorite brother, for sure.

Not your buisness, he thought a moment later, glaring down at Loriel's evil grin before meeting it with a grin of his own. He was Loriel's least favorite as well.

A servant announced Peo's arrival, and Sentel waved her in. She wore an unusually grim expression, and held a black scroll in her hands. An announcement of death. The awkward atmosphere quickly turned uneasy as she walked to the table.

"Gentlemen." She bowed deeply. "I apologize for my interruption, but the news is urgent."

"Not at all," Sentel murmured, exchanging a quick glance with Raiel. "Please, speak."

"Queen Amelia and King Marcosa are dead."

The words hung loudly in the room as everyone tried to process the absurdity of her words.

"The queen and...?" Tayel repeated, wide eyed. "How did it happen? When?"

"They passed away in their sleep two nights ago. The cause is unknown, but they're certain the queen died first, triggering the king's death soon after." Unease was suddenly palpable in the room.

"Well, that's… odd. I've never heard of a queen dying first." Kaitel stared into his soup, no doubt struggling to think around his hangover. "I thought… I think we just assumed they were immortal. Cause unknown indeed."

Peo passed the scroll to Sentel, who unscrolled it as she continued. "According to the official announcement, the queen had predicted their deaths, and had made arrangements beforehand based on certain premonitions. But…"

She shrugged. "Unofficially, there's no word as to what the premonitions were and what those arrangements might have been. Her advisors aren't talking, and we're only just finding out that the main temple's been under a gag order for weeks. The capitol is in chaos, in any case." Again, the room was silent as everyone tried to wrap their heads around the thought.

"She _was_ very old," Kaitel said eventually, obviously the least bothered of the group. "The oldest we've known of. I wonder what it could have been after all this time, and so suddenly, as well?"

"She wasn't just the _oldest_." Tayel shook his head, still disbelieving. "She was the only one left! I… it's been… it's been twenty _generations._ How do we live without a queen?"

"We'll live," Loriel said quietly. "Someone had to hatch the queens. There were others."

"But… it's unprecedented!" Tayel argued, setting aside his glasses and covering his eyes as if he'd gotten a sudden headache. "Can anyone even succeed her? You can't just—you can't just _become_ a queen!"

"Well, maybe you can, for all we know," Sentel murmured. "But Loriel's right, the queens didn't hatch themselves. Perhaps… perhaps they've been born, but we just haven't identified them. Or maybe they just haven't hatched yet."

"But there are only so many eggs _left_!" Tayel cried, "and so many fewer hatchlings whose curses we don't know! And how... how do you not recognize _silver magic_ , at the very least?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "No… No queens have hatched. Not yet."

No one could argue with that, at least.

Even Kaitel, the avid historian he was, couldn't contribute much to their questioning. "There are just no records," he admitted when asked. "The queens were around long before we began writing our histories, you know, and none of them were exactly chatty. For all we know, they really could have been there from the beginning."

"Hmm…" Raiel spun his fork between his fingers and frowned. "Right now, I'd just like to know what kind of premonition the queen had before her death…"

Sentel frowned back at him. "Who knows? Maybe there was no premonition at all. It could be a kind lie to keep us from worrying."

Raiel's frown deepened. "But for the temple to be gagged? For weeks beforehand? That doesn't make sense. If they had just foreseen her death, that would be one thing, but combined with whatever the queen's 'arrangements' were…" He stopped spinning his fork and speared his last sausage. "The Gods have told them something for sure. I don't know what, but they know _something_ , at least.

The room mulled on that for a bit while he ate.

"You're probably right," Sentel agreed with a somewhat defeated sigh. "For better or worse, they obviously know _something_ … We'll just have to wait and see what that something is."

Tayel still seemed unconvinced. "I suppose… But if the news was good, why are they hiding it?" He chewed on his thumb nail with something like a low growl. "Gods... Our last queen…"

Sentel reached across the table to pat his hand. "Relax, brother. We'll know in time."

He sighed, still chewing his thumb. "I suppose."

Peo cleared her throat quietly; Sentel dismissed her with a short wave. By the time the door was shut behind her, the table had returned to something more like the silence she'd interrupted. The queen and king's deaths still hung on everyone's minds, but after a few minutes of forced small talk from Sentel, the atmosphere was a bit less tense, at least.

"Raiel… are you still leaving?" Loriel asked eventually, his expression glum. "You've only been here a week. I never see you nowadays."

Raiel's dour mood faded as he patted his brother's shoulder, no doubt surprising everyone at the table. "I'm sorry," he said, and meant it. "But between my cold and last night, I'm eager to be back at home. Besides, if I become truly sick, no one here will know how to take care of me." Tayel made an offended noise from across the table, and he corrected himself. "No one here is used to _me_ being sick, and with no offense meant to Peo, my facilities are much nicer. I will recover faster when I'm out of this frozen hellscape."

"How rude," Sentel complained. "You'll miss the first snow of the season!"

"I certainly hope so," he agreed, finishing his wine. "I'm flying home after all."

Now Sentel looked offended. "What?! What's wrong with the train? We've finally gotten a passenger line up here, and you're going to _fly_ home? _Sick_?"

"Trains terrify me," Raiel grumbled without meaning to. He cast a dark look at Tayel, who threw up his hands. 'Not my fault.' "I don't like being in such close confines with others," he clarified. "And flying is faster, in any case."

"You'll have a private cabin, you know. You can even rent a full car if you'd like," Tayel offered. "And it's only five days to Crown Port by rail! Honestly, if you're sick, it's probably faster—less taxing, certainly."

Raiel had to phrase his response carefully. "I would... feel more comfortable flying home. _Particularly_ because of the cold. Weather permitting, I'll plan to be home in a week."

"The weather should be nice for flying!" Kaitel said quickly, waving a spoon with one hand. He had already forgotten the awkwardness he had caused earlier, eager to discuss the observations he'd no doubt taken during his stay. The sky was his favorite subject, after history. "I was on the roof this morning, and once the storm was through, the pressure had dropped quite a bit. You could see the northern stars _perfectly_. Very low humidity, considering. It'll be cold but clear, and between the temp-"

His voice cut off as he went limp, falling forward into his soup with a clatter. Unmoving.

There was a general sigh around the table.

"Ah, Hell," Tayel muttered, pulling his face from the bowl. "That's the second time today."

"No, no," Raiel offered pleasantly. "Don't bother yourself. He can't drown."

Tayel glared at him before pushing Kaitel's bowl aside and wiping what he could from his tanned cheeks and mousy hair. His glasses had cracked, Raiel saw with evil amusement. "In _water_ , maybe," Tayel grumbled, "not tomato soup. And he's not breathing anyway." He cast a spell under his breath and the glasses mended themselves cleanly.

"Better him than us," Loriel said smugly, just before falling limp and unmoving into his plate of eggs across from Kaitel. Sentel burst into raucous laughter as Tayel sighed deeply. Even Raiel had to laugh, though it turned into a painful coughing fit.

"Ah, _Hell_ ," Tayel groaned, not bothering to move his youngest brother. "And there's the third."

"Better him than us indeed!" Sentel managed between laughs. "That's called jinxing yourself—the Gods like nothing more than proving people wrong, you know."

Raiel looked at his two youngest brothers with a bit less amusement and a bit more discomfort.

Kaitel's curse came with no rhyme or reason, and was just as likely to strike himself as anyone else. It usually didn't happen so often, but it was up to chance, after all.

They would both wake in a few minutes, he knew, but seeing them so still made him uncomfortable nonetheless. They weren't dead, but the effect was all too real. No breath, no pulse... They would wake as if nothing had happened, but before then, they were practically corpses at the table.

Raiel shivered, his appetite gone. Truly, Kaitel was his least favorite.

* * *

Sentel saw him out, helping him check that his pack was secure before they stepped outside. The trees glimmered with ice in the morning light, and Raiel almost admitted that it was rather beautiful. A sneeze interrupted the thought, though, and he regretted it. It was still cold and horrible.

"I wish you would stay." Sentel sighed dramatically, sad but resigned. "You never visit me!"

"True. It's horrid here and I hate it. But thankfully, you travel far more often than I do." Raiel slid his pack down the sleet covered steps and tried his best not to slip along with it. "You're free to visit any time."

Sentel hummed noncommittally. "You _should_ see mother, you know," he said, walking easily ahead of Raiel with no concern for the ice. "She misses you."

Raiel nearly rolled his eyes. "You and Tayel. Honestly."

"And mother!" he said more earnestly. "I saw her this spring, you know. When was the last time _you_ saw her?"

Raiel actually had to count back, a bit embarrassed. "Not since our last family gathering," he admitted. It was nearly five years ago, then. Sentel made a sound halfway to a snort.

"Go see your damn mother. For her sake if nothing else. She's incredibly worried about you after last night, you know."

Raiel stiffened, then turned to him with a snarl. " _Damn_ you, Sentel! Why the _fuck_ would you tell her about that?"

Sentel held his gaze. " _Tayel_ told her, because she asked specifically about you." His gaze hardened as Raiel flinched. "By all our Gods combined, Raiel, when was the last time you even talked to her?"

"We spoke at the solstice," he muttered, turning away.

"Winter, or summer?

"I-" Raiel was still fuming, but he couldn't direct his anger towards his brother. He let the anger pass he realised that, letting out a long breath as he did so. He had made his way down the steps, and the soft crunch of frozen sleet was now the only sound around them.

"It's difficult," he said finally. "Going home is difficult. Speaking to her is difficult. Ever since… well, since a few things, really. But last night didn't help." He laughed once without amusement.

Sentel grimaced, keeping his distance but clearly wanting to step closer. "I thought for sure you'd moved past all of that," he murmured. "The rest of us have. By the gods, you were a _baby_. Raiel."

"Uncle hasn't," he said quietly, and Sentel's hackles raised.

"Well uncle is a bitter old goblin," he snapped, "and if I hear him say a thing to you I'll bite his throat out where he stands."

"You'd never hear." Sentel's hackles stayed raised, and a new rumbling growl rose in his throat. Raiel smiled faintly. "It's alright. He'd never say anything directly. Even he knows better than that."

"I'll bite his throat," Sentel repeated in a lower voice, almost muttering to himself now. Raiel's smile faded and he unclasped his cloak.

"I'll… I'll think about it." He held the cloak to his brother, not meeting his eyes. Visiting mother, I mean."

Sentel's face softened as he took the cloak. "I think.. I think that would make you both happy." Raiel wanted to hold his brother once again. He pushed away the thought; his cold had him becoming awfully clingy. A dangerous feeling. A feeling he couldn't afford to have.

"Well," he murmured, shivering as a cold breeze hit his neck. "I'm off. Burn the rest, they're not worth saving." Sentel nodded, still staring at the forest ahead as Raiel quickly disrobed, a spell already forming on his lips as an unnatural gold light melted the snow beneath him.

"Til later, brother," Sentel said finally, turning to catch his brother in the last of his human form. But Raiel could only nod, too far into the spell to respond. Gold light flashed against the trees as an unnatural breeze whistled through the air. Then Raiel was all gold, stretching, growing, unfurling… and then gold no more.

* * *

Kaitel grumbled to himself as he walked, still sure he could taste tomato soup in the back of his throat. "I should stop having soup in general," he told himself aloud. "Or I should stop leaning over my food, I guess."

He rubbed a towel through his wet hair yet again, trying not to knock his glasses off his face. At least, unlike his brothers, he enjoyed the wet and the cold. "Though freezing… freezing is a bit much." He wasn't built for ice. But at least the library was under the manor where it was heated. He had read nearly everything there, but there were a few books he'd been saving for a rainy day. Or an icy day, maybe. Mostly human history books, but human history was the history of his kind as well. "Kind of."

He rounded a corner, surprised to see a figure in doctor's black leaning into a window and staring outside. It was a human, probably, and quite a chubby one at that. And that black hair… odd. Were they from the west? Or the south?

"Hello," he said easily, standing alongside them. They turned to him with a jolt of surprise, and he was surprised himself when he saw a woman. A woman in Sentel's home? "Ah, you must be the girl Raiel had a toss with, then!" He smiled and gave a small bow. "I'm Kaitel. Karisha, I think?"

"...Karishma," she said quietly, imitating his bow clumsily but continuing to stare. He realised he was still in his oversized bathrobe and barefoot; he apologized with a laugh.

"Karishma, hmm… An unusual name. Three syllables, even. Where does it come from?" The girl stared at him, brows furrowed, before shaking her head. "Oh? Is it not your name then?"

The girl said something in a language he didn't recognize, making his eyebrows raise. He very, very rarely met a language he couldn't even recognize. It was full of 's' sounds and harsh 't's. "Fascinating," he said aloud, smiling again and weaving a familiar spell around his throat. "I assume you don't speak anything more well known, hm?" He tried greeting her in nearly a dozen languages, but each was met with a shake of the head. ' _Nai_ ' she said twice. No. So she knew one or two words of Alic, at least. He was delighted when she asked three more languages of him he didn't recognize.

Four new languages! Four! He couldn't stop smiling, which clearly concerned her.

"Sorry," he said, knowing full well that she couldn't understand him. He turned back to the window, which looked out over the front of the manor. "But it's terribly exciting. To me, anyway. I wonder if Sentel will let me bring you back with me? New languages are always welcome, and I'd love to hear all about where you're from. Not that I'm saying your language is new, but _I've_ never heard it, I think, so it's uncommon at best. I hope it doesn't sound like bragging, but I'm fairly confident. But then, language isn't my specialty as much as history and astronomy. Oh, and speaking of Sentel…"

Sentel appeared in the courtyard directly below them, followed by Raiel. "Ah, guess he's leaving already. Shame, really. We don't talk often. I don't think he likes me much but I guess that's alright. I find him a bit gloomy myself. I wish he liked more people in general though. He needs the company I think. Don't you?"

He was surprised to see his companion a bit pale, knuckles white as they rested on the windowsill; her body language screamed 'fear.' Not surprising if she'd had a run in with Raiel's poison the night before, he figured.

"Don't worry about him," Kaitel said with a shrug. "He's harmless from a distance. And look, he's leaving now." She gasped as Raiel suddenly disrobed, blushing and looking away for a moment. But she turned back quickly, looking on with obvious puzzlement. "Oh! Have you never seen a change before?" She looked up to him, still confused. "You're in for a treat then. We use spells nowadays to speed up the process, so it's over fairly quickly, but it's still fascinating stuff. He makes a real bend of physics. Not as big a bend as _I_ make, of course, but Gods no _thank_ you. Not in all this ice."

She was probably ignoring him. Just as well, really. "Look, see? The spell's starting. Watch his head. Don't blink now, it's over quick."

She looked up to him briefly. " _Nada_?" she repeated quizzically. Head?

"No, look, look! Eyes down there!" He pointed, and he watched Karishma's expression as she watched Raiel's transformation. He knew what to expect, having been through the process hundreds of times himself, but she clearly did not and remained slack jawed for the duration. It was almost funny.

He knew that Raiel glowed gold as his physical body melted into a more malleable, less solid form from the spell. It was possible to change without one, of course—hatchlings did so constantly—but that was slow and could be rather painful if there were large differences between forms. So, spells were the norm.

The gold form stretched, the spell aiding in rearranging and stretching muscles and bones before adding new ones and settling those into place as well. New limbs were then added, or unneeded limbs were taken away. Raiel grew two wings—both a bit larger than the rest of his body altogether—and a tail nearly his new wingspan in length.

The air rippled as the form took in mass from the environment around it, though it was never enough mass to completely form the new, larger body. Though that mass would be lost when they changed back, so it was even enough in the end. Magic worked strangely that way sometimes.

Once the general form was in place, it began to solidify. It started from the inside out, forming the heart, lungs, brain, nerves, and magic channels. The other organs quickly followed, and muscles and bones joined after that.

Fur, feathers, and scales were the last to form, the gold glow fading from the new structures as they finished. Kaitel turned back to the window for that, at least; the end result was rather striking, after all.

Raiel's silvery pelt was nearly all fur: short, thick, nearly-white fur, with only the faintest stripes of silver mottling his back. The fur turned abruptly to pearlescent scales below his now-digitigrade knees, only absent on the thick black pads of his clawed feet. Finally, six twisting pearl horns faded from gold on his head, the pairs increasing in size as they moved back from his snout. And then the spell was complete.

He was plain but handsome, Kaitel had decided. A very traditional form, save the fur; at least his colors were nice, even though Kaitel couldn't help but think that scales would look even nicer. But perhaps he was biased. Raiel was small for their kind as well, not even twice his human height at the shoulder.

"I'm jealous," he said wistfully, watching Raiel's new form shake with a fit of sneezing before nudging his pack around his neck. "My body is such a pain to change into… and it's far too big to do anything reasonable with on land." He made a face. "Can't do much of anything on land here, really. Wiggle, maybe. Freeze to death. So, here I am, stuck in this human-y thing. Oh well. It has its advantages, I suppose. Thumbs are nice. And talking. Most of us can't talk in that form, you know. Tayel can, but he's the only one I can think of."

Karishma was still staring down at Raiel, still open mouthed. She said something quietly, then turned to Kaitel with wide eyes. "Dragon," she said a bit louder, then added something else in her sharp language.

" _Draco_ ," he corrected. "So you know the word for dragon, huh? An odd choice for a limited vocabulary, but I approve given the circumstances." He pulled away from the window, stretching lightly.

"Well, it was nice chatting with you, even if it was rather one sided. Hopefully there's someone nearby who can fix you up with some translation magic. If not—or even if there is, I suppose—I could get a sending going to someone back home and make you something a bit more permanent before I leave. Not to discourage you from learning! But it must be awfully frustrating, not knowing the-"

He didn't get to finish before his eyes slid closed and he crumpled to the ground. When he woke, alone, his hair was nearly dry and his arse and head were sore. "You're welcome, I suppose," he said to no one, rubbing his arse as he limped towards the library. Well, it would keep him from being bored, at least. She seemed nice enough, and it was the least he could do for someone as uprooted as she obviously was.

Humans were short lived, yes, but he liked them immensely. A new friend was always welcome. Maybe she could teach him something new, at least. It was all he could ask for.


	6. Chapter 5

They concluded that the woman, Karishma, had probably been spelled. The last she remembered it was the start of spring, and it was already three weeks into autumn. If she was from their hemisphere, she was missing nearly half a year of memories. Even if she wasn't, she was missing several weeks of travelling across an entire ocean to Arista. As far as she knew, she had simply woken up in the place, and they were unable to figure out where she had been before before despite her best efforts to describe the place.

Whatever had taken her last memories seemed to have messed with her remaining ones. Magic was now completely new to her, and she couldn't even identify a map of the continent, much less the world in general. She appeared to have a vague knowledge of _some_ magics, but seemed to truthfully believe she had been in a place without them entirely.

It could have also been regular, unmagical trauma, Tayel and Kaitel had offered. She had hit her head rather badly the first night. Apparently, it was possible to lose very specific memories with that kind of blow. Perhaps her confusion was the result of her brain trying to piece together what it still knew. It would be unusual, yes, but not unheard of. Still, Sentel decided to act safely, and work assuming her memory loss was magical and intentional.

Despite her odd memories, they quickly concluded that she was harmless. Sentel's real concern was then with whoever had brought her to the manor.

No one on staff knew anything, which meant that someone had broken in. But breaking into his manor, stealing nothing, and then somehow leaving a foreign woman with tampered memories behind? It reeked of a kidnapping gone wrong, if not something worse, and he didn't like the thought of human trade existing in his domain one bit.

Yesterday, he arranged for Tayel to assist him and the king's guard in sweeping the nearby capitol for such a trade; he was disgusted when they found it, disguised as an employment center near the center of town. There were nearly two dozen dozen men and women kept there, and they arrested nearly as many as accomplices to their 'owner' in the impromptu raid. Between Tayel's and Sentel's curses combined, the woman unwittingly informed them of two similar operations in nearby towns, and they rushed to close those as well before word of the raid spread. By the end of the day, nearly sixty people of various ages had been recovered, and nearly thirty others were lined up for execution by the end of the week.

As far as Sentel could tell, that was the end of the slavery operation, but they did catch wind of a separate smuggling ring operating elsewhere. But by the time they began a more thorough search a few days later, the news of the raids had spread. Any illicit activity was now in hiding until the spring thaw.

Sentel rubbed his eyes as he looked over his reports for the fifth time, feeling anger and shame in equal parts. It was all right outside his doors, right under his damn nose! So many people… He had utterly failed them, people that had placed their trust in him to keep them safe. He had gotten _complacent_ , assuming that _his_ domain was too _safe_ for such a thing to grow. How utterly stupid. He drained a third glass of wine, refilled it, and leaned into his chair. Some lord he was.

"Long night?" He jumped at Peo's voice, swearing as he spilled his wine onto his lap. She set a scroll and two sheets of paper on his desk, ignoring his grumbling as he stood and shook out his robe.

"Damn you, woman… What happened to knocking?"

"I did knock." She ignored Sentel's glare. "Here, from Kaitel. I figured you could use some good news."

She unraveled the scroll, turning it towards him. It was covered in gold designs and beautiful black cursive. "Your cousin Ersha's found her mate."

Sentel grinned from ear to ear, his worries forgotten as he looked over the invitation. " _What_? I didn't expect—that's _wonderful_!" The first in the family! Ersha was older than him, but for a female she was young to be mated. She was likely as surprised as he was! "Do I know the lucky man?"

"You might. He's from Phär, but Kaitel told me he visits the south coasts often. Olsmar, he said. I believe."

Sentel grinned. "Olsmar! I remember him. There aren't many sea dragons longer than Kaitel, and he made quite an impression! I can't remember his curse exactly, but I think it's fairly mild." He rubbed his chin. Ersha's curse turned fresh water salty—a perfect complement to a dragon who lived in the ocean. "I'll be sure to send them my best wishes right away."

He shook his head slightly, a faint disappointment replacing the initial shock. Damn, he'd never have expected that his cousin would be mated before _he_ was. She was older, yes, but it was still a bit soon for a female dragon. Ah, he could hear the teasing now...

He pushed the feeling aside. He was in no rush, after all.

His joy turned a bit wistful as he looked over the announcement, reading it in full. She was going to move with him to Phär by the spring, where they'd share his newly expanded domain. "Ah… of course, it would be cruel to make him leave the ocean… And her curse, of course, of course. But so far away! We'll have to visit them when they've settled, Peo."

She gave the faintest smile back. "I'd like that very much. I hear it's lovely in the spring."

"It is," Sentel agreed. "All islands and forests, and the cities are half on boats. It's beautiful." He frowned up at Peo. "Are you sure I've never brought you there before? It's a favorite spot of mine."

Her faint smile turned… almost sad. "You brought mother there many times," she murmured. "It was a favorite spot of hers, too."

They were quiet for a moment, and Sentel felt almost guilty. Of course. Peo had only been with him for a decade. There were many places they hadn't been.

He had been with her mother, Rhan, for nearly three times as long until she'd come with child and retired. He had gotten along well with her daughter, who eventually took her mother's place as his assistant. She was so much like her mother, with only her unknown father's grey eyes and strong jaw standing out.

Sentel loved her for the same reasons he had loved her mother, as well. She was strong, smart, and kept him in line. And unlike her mother, she had returned his feelings. She was a beauty, yes, but a beast in bed. Not that that was a complaint, he thought with an inward laugh. Not at all.

He was going to miss her, he realized for the hundredth time.

He walked around the desk, resting his chin on her shoulder. She gave him an odd look, and he responded with a kiss to her neck. "I wish… I wish that we could choose, like you can," he said after a while, and she knew what he meant. "It must be nice."

She laughed lightly and rustled his hair. "Look at you, such a romantic!"

"I mean it, Peo. I envy you."

She gave an exasperated sigh and pulled him tight against her chest. "And I envy _you_ , you overgrown chicken." She squeezed him again, then held him in front of her with a frown. "You're going to have a lovely dragoness, and she's going to have seven little hatchlings crawling around the place within ten years."

"What if I don't want seven little hatchlings?" he pouted, and Peo glared at him. He apologized quickly, looking away.

Peo was born with no womb, and so would never have children of her own. It was the reason his curse did not affect her, and one of the reasons she had been eager to join him. Without children, she said, she was free to live a life as she wished. But he knew that she wanted them, maybe even moreso because she could never have them. She wanted them more than anything. Being with him was a welcome distraction, he knew, but it was an empty one at times.

Even if she had a womb, he thought sadly, he could never have given her children. A dragon's seed and eggs were useless to anyone but their mate. And dragons did not take human mates.

They stayed together knowing that any day he could be called away by the pull of his future wife. In fact, he was overdue. They had accepted that, and enjoyed the days as they came. It was an easy and open relationship, and one that he would miss dearly when he was finally mated for life.

"My wife is going to put up with you anyway," he decided, leaning in and planting kisses down her neck. "I won't let her chase you off."

She accepted his kisses with amusement. "Your wife is going to be a woman of solid iron, and if your tail _drifts_ out of line she's going to bite it off."

"It doesn't sound like much of a change." He got his ear pinched for that, followed by a kiss.

"If I bit your tail for chasing other women, you wouldn't have one left." Another kiss, and she pulled away with an evil grin. "You'd have as flat an arse as mine." He started to make a snippy reply, but she suddenly frowned and stepped away.

"Oh, damn. I told you the _good_ news, but speaking of tails…" She walked past him to his desk, picking up the two papers she had set beside the invitation. "Nearly forgot why I came up. Here, these are from Captain Sen.

"Patrols in your uncle's domain have spotted a pack of half a dozen wyverns heading north. They're still two flights away, but he thought you should know as the pack may be aggressive." She handed him the papers with a grimace, which he returned. So much for his good mood.

Wyverns were cousins to dragons in the way that apes were cousins to humans or fish were cousins to merfolk. They were animals: large, social, and powerful animals. There were domesticated breeds, of course—they were excellent mounts for light flying—but wild wyverns were rather rare and stayed close to their home caves.

Settled packs were signs of a healthy forest, and it was usually considered good luck to come across a wild one. They were peaceful. Shy, even. At times, friendly.

But _wandering_ packs… no. Wandering packs were _never_ good to find. A moving wyvern was a hungry wyvern, and a single hungry wyvern was dangerous on its own. _Six_ hungry wyverns could burn and eat a village in a night.

"You said aggressive, yes?" he asked, looking over the map and report in his hands. "Any attacks?"

A nod. "Two weeks ago, one caught a hunting pack of wolf folk by surprise—it was probably after the same elk they were. Two wolves sustained moderate burns, but one died of secondary infection." Sentel grimaced. So even a hunting pack couldn't handle a single wyvern...

"If they're attacking sentients before winter even starts, we don't need them near our borders. I don't want to kill them, but if it comes to that..." 'I'm not sure we _could_ kill them,' he added inwardly. Wyverns were one of the few animals with magic channels, and strong ones at that; spells were hardly a practical defense against them. And they were too large to overpower by force with any certainty. Not with human forces, at least.

Damn. What a mess.

He traced the map with a steady finger, following the scout's annotations. "Hmm… they're moving slowly, but definitely north… Why would they be moving _north_ this time of year…? I suppose it hardly matters, but..."

Sentel set down the papers, beginning a report to his own guards. "Once the snows start, they'll probably head south, but keep our scouts in contact with uncle's, just in case. If they get within half a flight before then, I want two patrols on border lookout, tracking the pack. Ariel forces only, no wyvern mounts—I don't want to lead them anywhere with scent. Oh, and have our regular patrols tell anyone they find south of the Laurel dam to keep an eye out right away, just in case. I don't want to cause a panic but they need to be on alert in case something goes wrong." He sealed the bottom of the page with a sprinkle of golden sparks and red wax. "And if they _do_ cross the border, I want a curfew put out _immediately_ for a flight in all directions."

"Of course, my Lord," Peo grabbed the rolled paper he offered and raised an eyebrow when he did not let go.

"Must you call me that when we're alone?" he pouted, stepping forward to nuzzle her neck. "Besides… we don't have to be anywhere until the morning…" A hand slid between her legs, trailing back as his fangs grazed her neck and-

She pulled the paper back and rapped his head with it before walking to the door. "I'm to meet with Captain Sen in twenty minutes, my Lord," she called over her shoulder, "and I will call you such in front of him."

"Just call me an _awful_ _cuckold_!" Sentel shouted after her, and he saw her grin as she closed the door behind her. He couldn't stop his own grin, and looked back to the scroll on his desk with a chuckle.

Well, they had the rest of the evening. And hopefully many more evenings after that.

* * *

Finally, Raiel thought. A proper rest. He stretched his neck over the side of the spring, trying to find a comfortable position to float in, or at least a position where he didn't have to move a single muscle. Gods, he was sore. His cold had turned into a flu, and he would have been hurting if he _hadn't_ spent a week flying home, and had managed to sleep more than two hours at a time the entire trip. He stretched his wings with a pained grumble, wishing that he could breathe water like Kaitel and curl up completely in the pool.

A traitorous part of him said he should have just taken the train. After another coughing fit hacked up something large, green, and wholly unpleasant, he was inclined to agree.

He let out a long whine as he swung his head to the cave entrance, gazing down into the valley below.

His mountainous home, tucked into a valley near the western sea, was covered in dozens of hot springs. This particular one was his favorite: a wide but shallow pool that fit his dragon form comfortably, nestled into a small cave overlooking a sheer cliff.

The water couldn't have been far below boiling, but that was nothing to a dragon. In fact, his sore wings relished the heat and the steam was slowly but steadily clearing his nose. The view was nice, too.

He'd missed the gold and red tones of a _proper_ autumn. Sentel's pine forests were green even in the dead of winter; Raiel much prefered to watch the seasons change with the leaves. He needed to cover his garden, he realised as a cold breeze brushed his muzzle. Frost would come soon, if it hadn't already. He sneezed again, rumbling and pulling his head under the water. Gods. He couldn't escape the cold, could he?

A deep rumble shook the pool as he coughed. The water's surface stilled just a moment before the tip of his muzzle broke through, took a breath, sneezed, and lowered again.

Back under the water, he arched his back and shuddered again. He used his tail to massage between his wings with another, more satisfied rumble. The cramping was worst around his back and neck, and he suddenly regretted flying straight to the spring instead of stopping at home. It would have only taken a few minutes to prepare a muscle relaxant, or a quart of brandy at the least. Gods, brandy sounded wonderful.

He surfaced with a chain of sneezes, a deep growl of frustration shaking both the water and the cave itself. The growl turned into a fit of wet coughs, and he rested his head on the pool side again with a more sour mood than before. Damn his cold, or flu, or _plague_ , whatever else he may have caught.

He hoped Sentel was dying as well, wherever he was.

He rolled onto his back with another low growl, looking out over the gold and red mountains above, and the red roofed homes clustered between expansive vineyards and orchards below. He could see his own home to the south, barely. It was the largest building in the valley, but a small manor compared to Sentel's. It might have been a _hovel_ by _his_ standards; Sentel complained whenever he came, mourning the lack of staff and excess niceties. But it was home, and it was comfortable, and it was heated during the winter, at least.

His garden had expanded into the hill behind the home, and into whatever parts of his stone fruit orchard weren't taken by massive trees. What he couldn't grow outside, he grew inside; he had carved an extensive lab underneath his quarters to suit his alchemy studies, and a few glass panes turned a partially-buried lab into a greenhouse just fine.

He had a lab, a garden, and an orchard. It was all he could ask for, really.

The same principle applied to his domain: it was small, but he appreciated the the place for what it was. The scattered settlements in his mountains were mostly agricultural by trade. The only major city was a Crown Port, which was nestled in a nearby fjord between the Laurel river and the Pearl Sea. Even then, it mostly dealt with packaging goods for shipment—by boat or, more recently, by train—and much of that was the city's produce in turn.

Overall, it was a slow, peaceful place, and he enjoyed it.

A gull fluttered into the cave, cawing loudly. It must have smelled food. He watched it circle his pack with amusement, huffing a laugh as it shoved its head too deep into a pocket and struggled to free itself with an indignant caw. When it pulled free, it shook its head, ruffled its feathers, and aggressively preened its wing.

He stilled as it hopped towards him twice, now after the food it smelled on his breath. He growled. It took another step and he snapped at it, glad to see it cry in surprise and flutter back with a more offended caw. Raiel retreated back to the water with a grumble. Damn bird. Smart as gulls were, their lack of fear was going to kill them off.

He closed his eyes, the image of the girl now set into his mind. Regret clung to him as the quickly-chilling water clung to his fur; he dunked himself back into the pool to warm his head again.

He hoped that wherever she was, she was safe now.

A faint tap on his head was followed by a piercing caw and a splash—the gull, hoping to perch on one of his horns, had killed itself instead. Kaitel meant to swear, but only guttural growls and hisses came out as he fished the bird from the water with a sigh. Damn bird, he accused. Too fearless for your own good.

Again, he thought of the woman. Reaching out for his bare hand, hoping for… something.

Really. Too fearless for your own good indeed.

He slunk out of the pool, shaking himself like a dog in an undignified attempt to dry himself quickly. Once he was damp instead of soaked, he began to weave a spell into his fur; the remaining water beaded and fell to the floor as if his fur had turned to wax. He shook again, flicking the last drops from his tail and his wings, before sighing at the limp bird in front of him.

He considered kicking it off of the ledge, but the taste of bird stuck to his teeth, and his mouth watered. He then considered snapping up the bird whole right there, but… he was about to return to his manor and shift back into a more human shape. It wouldn't necessarily _hurt_ him—magic worked strangely when it came to shifting forms—but was probably unwise to shift into a smaller body with a whole bird inside his stomach. He'd done it before, with a deer. It was… unpleasant. To say the least.

He licked the bird with a rough tongue, spitting out the feathers that stuck to his teeth. Well, at least it had been boiled, a bit, so the feathers would come off without too much work…

He'd ask to have it prepared for dinner, he decided, picking the gull up carefully between sharp fangs. It wasn't a huge bird, but he didn't doubt that his staff had planned a large meal for his arrival already. He felt a bit guilty for making them wait—his flight had taken him an extra day and a half, after all—but he knew he'd be welcomed with open arms. Metaphorically.

He spread as far as he could in the small cave before pouncing into the open air, enormous white wings unfurling as he fell. With an easy snap of wiry muscle against hollow bones, he shot upwards and across the valley, eager to be in his own bed with a cup of tea and a mug of brandy.


	7. Chapter 6

Raiel? Raiel. Wake up.

No.

Raiel, please.

Stop. You aren't real.

Raiel… please, Raiel.

Something touched his back, and he recoiled. A scream pierced his ears, coming from everywhere at once. A scream, then a sob. Not Ao's voice. The other one. A much more recent scream. But the voice was still Ao's, even as the screams echoed around him.

Raiel.

Stop this! Don't touch me, Ao!

Raiel… Raiel, please.

I'm sorry. Please. Don't touch me.

Raiel… please… please come back, Raiel.

Ao, stop. Gods, Ao. Don't touch me.

Another hand grabbed his shoulder in the blackness. He flinched, but couldn't pull away—he was paralyzed, as he often was in this nightmare. But two hands… two hands were new. Suddenly, they were trailing over him, down his back, then reaching around to pull him close.

Raiel, please. I'm so lonely, Raiel.

I'm sorry, Ao. It was my fault. I was careless. I'm sorry.

Why did you leave?

I… I'm sorry. It was only for the day. I didn't know. I couldn't have. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

Was it my fault?

Of course not. Of course it wasn't. It was my fault. It was always my fault.

So why won't you come back?

The hands around his waist trailed lower, and he gasped, nearly opening his eyes as they settled on his shaft. It was stiff, he realised with a start, goosebumps running down his arms at the unfamiliar sensation. But the hands did not move further, and her voice was suddenly sad. Heartbroken. Even as the other woman's screams continued.

Raiel… why would you leave? We were so close, Raiel. Do you not want me?

Ao, stop this.

Why, Raiel? Was I not good enough?

Ao. Ao. Please.

Was I not what you wanted?

Ao.

I'm sorry… I'm sorry, Raiel.

Ao…

Please. Come back soon. I miss you.

A hand brushed his cheek, and his eyes finally opened. He regretted it instantly. He always did.

Ao's face hung in front of him. Eyes glazed, her skin a dull grey against her beautiful blonde curls. Her expression was blank—her lips slightly parted, her eyes gazing into nothing. Two years later, she looked exactly the same. The same as the day he found her. Her voice continued, even as her lips stood still.

Raiel. I miss you.

I miss you too, Ao.

Come back to me.

I can't. I'm sorry.

Why not?

I… I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ao. I can't… follow you. Not now. I'm sorry.

Oh…

Tears began to well from Ao's dull eyes, dripping down to pool on the invisible bed they laid on. Another first for his nightmare. Even in his dream, he shuddered at the sight. He wanted to look away. But once his eyes opened, they wouldn't shut.

...Will you come soon, then?

Ao… I… I Can't...

At least, as soon as you can?

Ao…

Please, Raiel? I'm lonely here. I'm so lonely, Raiel…

Ao, I…

Please.

* * *

Raiel's eyes opened to his bedroom window. A pillow was lying halfway over his face, and he pushed it away with a slightly trembling hand. It was morning. No, the afternoon.

He was alone.

He stumbled to his bathroom in barely enough time to vomit into the toilet. He coughed, emptying what little he had eaten the night before into the bowl, along with no small amount of the mucus that had filled his throat for the past week and a half. He gasped, retched again, and nearly collapsed onto the floor.

A dream. It had been a dream. A nightmare. And a familiar one.

He quickly emptied his bladder after his stomach, surprised when his erection wouldn't fade. He was... aroused, he realised. By what, he couldn't possibly fathom. As he considered what to do next, Ao's grey face rose back to his mind, unbid, and he nearly retched again. " _Fuck_ ," he hissed, disgusted with himself. He quickly turned to the shower, shuddering as the cold water washed away filth both material and immaterial. He leaned against the wall with a long, gasping sort of sigh, not daring to close his eyes.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Eventually, he felt clean enough to step out, though guilt still followed him through his bedroom and out into his personal quarters. A kettle of tea had been set out for him, along with a few strawberries. He reheated the tea gratefully, not caring that it was a bit too steeped for his usual tastes. The cold burn of mint was oddly soothing. Eventually, he was relaxed enough to nibble at a berry, which disappeared with its companions as he realised just how hungry he was.

When the kettle was emptied, he added another bag of tea, refilled it, and leaned back into his chair to rest his eyes while it boiled.

He soaked in the sound of gentle flames, a soft hissing sound with the occasional flicker of fire against the pot. It mingled well with the gentle call of seabirds outside of his window; they were moving south, ushered forward by the cold snap that had covered Arista for over a week. He grimaced at the memory of flying home; his scaled feet weren't built to sit on ice. Again, he regretted avoiding the train.

His flu was finally fading, at least. His nose was still draining every drop of fluid from his body, but at least his fevers had stopped, and the flu's aches and pains were slowly being replaced with his more usual ones: a sore back from hunching over his desk and lab, and sore eyes from staring at papers and texts for hours at a time. He didn't know how Kaitel was always so damned cheery—his brother never complained of a sore back, anyway. Maybe there was a proper way to read he'd never learned. Who knew.

He wasn't getting enough sleep, in any case. That certainly wasn't helping anything.

He opened his eyes, turning to look out of the window. He studied the vines growing over his balcony, doing his best to keep Ao's face from appearing again.

His regular nightmares had been unusually frequent. It was to be expected, he supposed—the woman at Saitel's manor had been Ao's spitting image. Even if he hadn't poisoned her, the nightmares would have probably returned. He winced at the memory of her voice in his nightmare, and shuddered at the thought of Ao's voice screaming in his room not long ago.

He jumped at the kettle's whistle, thinking for a panicked moment that it was a scream once again. But, thankfully, it was only the kettle. "You nearly killed me," he accused. "Have a bit of tact." It couldn't defend itself. Rightfully so, he thought.

He shut off the boiler with a wave of his hand before combing his hands once again through his hair. It was a nervous habit that he had picked up from Sentel years earlier, and one he had struggled to shake. A lump rose to his throat as he pulled his hands back and saw two strands of hair threaded between his fingers. They flashed gold before turning to dust, burned instantly around his hands as he shook the ashes away with disgust.

He quickly pleated his hair, then cast a long but familiar spell over the tight braid. His hair flashed gold with magic, tightening the braid further and tucking stray hairs into place before flashing gold again. His hair was sealed safely; the routine's completion gave him a deep sort of relief.

He dressed comfortably but simply; a light blue shirt over dark deerskin pants. His ever-present black gloves and thick signet ring were last, and the feeling of having his hands covered brought him no small amount of comfort. They weren't _comfortable_ , persay, but they were reassuring and familiar. Having his hands bare anywhere outside of his quarters gave him anxiety. And after his gathering at Sentel's… well. He wasn't going to be leaving his gloves anytime soon.

He poured his last cup of tea, bringing the cup with him as he left for the kitchen. He checked twice that his door had indeed been locked before continuing.

He paused as he passed in front of his open study, frowning at the two scrolls he knew sat on his desk inside.

One was an announcement of his cousin's marriage. He had been surprised to receive it, but sent out a quick letter of congratulations. She was only a few years older than Sentel, after all—definitely young to be mated for a female. But she was mated, and she she was, undoubtedly, happy. As he wondered how she was enjoying her new life, he wondered—not for the first time—when his turn would come.

His heart ached uncomfortably in his chest, and he scowled as he looked down. "I'll have none of that," he said aloud, glaring at his chest. "Shut up." His chest didn't answer, and so he kept walking.

Or, he tried to keep walking before sighing deeply and turning back to his study. He'd been home for three days. He couldn't put it off any longer.

He unrolled the second scroll with both a deep wince and a faint smile. It was a message from his mother, sent the same day Tayel had told her about his incident at Sentel's manor. Her tone was gentle. Too gentle, as if she was afraid to push him away. She didn't mention the incident at all, and he couldn't decide if that was a relief or not. But her message was clear: she was worried, she loved him, and she wanted to see him.

His heart ached again, now with homesickness as he traced her signature. It was huge, looping, and graceful, shining gold no matter how he held the paper.

He missed her, he realized. He missed her too much.

A lump rose to his throat and he swallowed it. What could he do? She was across the continent. Much farther than Sentel's home—a hard flight in the cold, sick or not.

There was a much faster train, though… a newer rail designed for only passengers. It would take him most of the way if he transferred in Chimney Falls. A two week journey across Arista could, theoretically, be cut to just under a week.

A week, though...

He winced at the thought of taking a train for such a long journey. He had told his brothers that he disliked the close quarters on trains, but that was only a half truth. His primary fear of trains came from the fact that he was trapped. He was trapped with other people inside a metal crate for days at a time. And if anything at all went wrong, there was no way to make an antidote. Not on a moving train in the middle of nowhere.

But he couldn't ask her to come to _his_ home. Not with his father as he was. It would be cruel of him to separate his mother from her mate, unconscious or not.

He gave another small sigh at that, stroking his braid. His father… he wished his father would wake soon. It had been four years. Raiel missed his presence, and he was sure his mother missed him even more dearly.

But…

He stared at the scroll in his hands for quite a while, debating.

By the time he'd made his decision, his tea was cold, and he had to pull a cord under his desk to have another cup delivered. By the time his assistant arrived with a kettle and a tray of toast with cheese, he was almost finished drafting two sendings and a third, physical letter to his uncle.

"Good morning, my Lord! Or afternoon I should say."

"Ah, Mio. Thank you." He gratefully took a poured cup of honeyed tea. "You're just in time. Here, bring these two sendings down to the post office in a bit. And this letter, once I'm finished with it." He handed the young man his two sendings before he continued to write.

"Sendings, hm? What's all the rush?" Mio scratched his dark scruffy beard with a dark hand, flipping the papers over to look for their addresses. "Huh. Your brother and your mum, then?"

"Yes. And this one is for uncle. I technically need to announce my departures to him, after all… but there's no need to spend extra on a sending, now is there?" They shared a knowing smile—there was little love between them for Raiel's uncle. "He'll know in a few days in any case." He put down his pen and reluctantly removed a glove to sign the letter with his finger—the gold sparks hadn't faded before the glove was returned. The letter was folded crisply into a pre-addressed envelope. It, too, was sealed with a shower of gold sparks as he pressed his signet ring into red wax.

His assistant took the letter, unusually quiet. "Something wrong, Mio?" He shook his head, standing a bit straighter.

"Beg your pardon, sir. It's not my job to pry is all."

"And when has ever stopped you?" Raiel took a slice of cheese toast with a smile. "It's not your job to bring me toast with my tea, either, but I appreciate it nonetheless."

He grinned at that. "Nice cheese, though." Raiel took a bite and had to agree. "I'm just surprised is all. Travelling twice in a month. It's unlike you. And to your mum's, too! Quite a bit away, eh?"

"It is, and I meant to talk to you about that."

Raiel paused, not sure how to phrase his question without appearing as afraid and desperate for company as he felt. "I was wondering if... you'd accompany me on the trip? We'd go by train, of course," he added quickly. "The passenger line."

He couldn't see Mio's face, but his shocked silence spoke volumes. "Oh, yes, of course, sir!" He laughed merrily. "Wow, the train even! Has this flu killed you after all?"

Raiel made a face around his toast. "Perhaps. But I expect to be well by the time we reach our destination in a week's time. You'll have to deal with all my normal bitterness by then, I'm afraid."

He blinked. "A week's time? When were you planning to leave?"

"Tomorrow evening," he said easily, standing with a stretch. "Before I decide that this is a horrible and impulsive idea, and talk myself out of it. Is that time enough to prepare for my absence?"

"I-yes, my Lord. I suppose so. I'll... tell the staff and send a notice to the town hall. Governess won't be happy, but she never is I reckon."

"Good to hear. I'm trusting you to make arrangements while I try to book us a car. It's short notice, but hopefully there will be one left for us to nab. I'll pay extra if need be."

"A full car? Oh. Ahh, alright then." He clearly understood Raiel's reasoning. Mio had been working for him for nearly six years, after all. "Full car it is. If I might be so bold, I'd ask you to not pack a full car's worth of luggage, at least, my Lord.

"Ha! You jest, but it will be a long and cold trip. The west coast is colder than the east—pack warmly."

"Of course, my Lord. I'm looking forward to the trip already! Never met your mum in person. A goddess incarnate if Tayel's to be believed."

Raiel couldn't help but smile. "An saint, more like. You'll like her."

"Hm… but will she like _me_ 's the question?"

Raiel laughed. "She likes everyone, and that's why she's a damn saint." He finished his toast, licking his gloved thumb with a rasped tongue. "Now. If you'll excuse me, I need to book us quite a few train tickets."

"Of course, my Lord. We'll have supper ready by the time you're back."

"Good to hear." He fastened his black travel cloak around his neck, and began to pull his braid into a low bun; it was safer to keep it from flying about in public. "May I ask what's on the menu?"

"Apple chutney from the Mar Orchards, with some fresh brioche on the way. We had planned to roast a duck, but… if you'd like to bring another gull home instead, I can tell Cook to wait."

Raiel growled, but it was more of an annoyed sound than a guttural warning. "I'll have _you_ roast over a fire," he grumbled, but he couldn't help but smile as he said it.

"The gull was good," he said more loudly, closing his wallet with a snap as he stepped outside. "My late compliments to the chef."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the first batch of chapters. I'm hoping to post in bursts, rather than a chapter at a time. Just to make sure I can make story adjustments when needed.
> 
> If you've made it this far, I hope it's because you've enjoyed it. Whether you have or whether you haven't, I'd be grateful if you let me know why—if you have the time, drop a comment by! I appreciate them all, I promise, and I'll plan to respond to them all on whichever site you're reading on when future updates come. Whenever that might be. Hopefully, soon. 
> 
> Until then~

**Author's Note:**

> So. This is a thing, huh? I've only posted on FPress in the past, but I've had friends convince me to start posting stuff here too. So. Here I am! I guess!
> 
> This story is inspired by a lot of other FPress stories I've read over the years, but I have to give a shout out for one in particular: The Princess and the Dragon by MadameLeQueen, over on Fiction Press. It's unfinished, and will probably remain that way, as it's been... about four years since an update. But I'm a damn sucker for anything involving magical romance and being whisked away to who knows where. And... what can I say. I'm a damn romantic at heart.
> 
> I'm going to upload about six chapters at once, so this is the last author's note for now. But I'll do my best to respond to all reviews and questions once I've written enough to upload another batch.
> 
> I hope you enjoy my self indulgent fluffy romance with eventual boning: or as I like to call it, plot with porn. Also, I have no idea what the HELL to tag this shit with, so any suggestions are welcome. For the record, this is going to be pretty damn Het, but I'm doing my damnedest to keep it inclusive otherwise. If I mess up, please, let me know. Call me the hell out I'm begging you. I want to make something people can enjoy without guilt. Well, I mean, it's romance porn. It's made of guilt. But like, without being uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than usual reading. Slow burn plot w/porn.
> 
> Thanks! And, hopefully, enjoy


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